Pinky Promise

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Honourable mention in the 3rd Annual Geist Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest.

So we’ll meet right here, okay? Let’s say December when I guess the storms are huge and the waves hit the shore like they have some ancient rivalry. And rumour has it there’s this clapboard house you can rent for pennies and it’s like maybe a million years old. And it’s as close as you can get to the sea without getting swept away. We’ll get oysters, dig clams and rip mussels off the rocks. (I have the recipe your mum stole from that Portuguese restaurant in Kitchener.) Can you bring a sack of basmati rice, we can live on a cup and a half a day.

When the weather’s nice, how about we stay indoors? We’ll dress as pirates and lay siege to the loft. We’ll write silly suicide notes and build two planks. When the weather’s foul—and it’s dark as hell—we’ll do that thing. I SWEAR TO GOD WE’LL DO THAT THING: we’ll climb to the roof with tarps and flashlights, then take turns screaming aloud into the gale passages from Moby Dick: “The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers of air, now hug me close! Let not Starbuck die . . .”

Now the shellfish won’t run out but . . . um . . . the rice will. Same too with the butter and white wine the mussels require. So we’ll pack it up then and French kiss goodbye. And we’ll make a plan for 2011 and double pinky promise to be there.