Your hands are stained yellow from the garlic shrimp. I had told you that you could eat the shells but your haole ass was never going to do that. You’ll never know that sucking on the head is the best part.
You’re staying at one of them Waikiki resorts with the towers and the tourists. You said you wanted an adventure. You’d never been with someone like me. So we go north.
In the rental car, you reach over to grope my ass. I slap your hand away and hand you a wet wipe. The last thing I need from a man is a UTI. But then I’d really be a woman; a real woman. Fish.
I’m facing the ocean when you show me the shell. A perfect little spiral. A grin smeared across your face. Is it true, what the tour guide said? That taking a shell off the beach is bad luck? I can feel you thinking: what can you possibly see in these waves that you can stare at every day?
On the horizon, I see your son taking the shell to show-and-tell. I see your son, shivering at drop-off while you see another woman like me in a seedy motel. I see you seeing your son on weekends and holidays only.
I laugh at you, a cackle sharp as coral. Just one superstition.
After all, you were going to take it anyway.
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“The Shell” was a finalist in The SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest 2024.
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