We met and fell in love on a river cruise through The St. Lawrence Seaway.
We boarded in Montreal, bumped elbows at the breakfast bar, and talked all the way from Valleyfield to Gananoque. We kissed for the first time under the shadow of giant pulp silos in Thorold, and our first night together was illuminated by the bright lights of the Clevland flats. At the terminus of our journey, the north pier lighthouse in Duluth, we knew we were soulmates.
But once that river cruise was over, we had to fly back to our separate lives, two thousand miles apart. We linked fingers near the newsstand in Duluth international and generated a slight static charge, even though we were standing on a non-conductive, terrazzo surface. We took that as a final bit of cosmic approval and committed to rejoining soon. The logistics of reunification would be the only significant task on our calendars when we arrived home.
Both of us worked remotely, so our jobs weren’t significant hurdles, and our only dependents were two cats (coincidentally, both Russian Blues.) Neither of us was overly constrained by friend or family obligations.
We quickly agreed to re-settle in one of the waypoints of our star-crossed cruise itinerary, but there’s a big lifestyle difference between Jamestown and Thunderbay, and it was important to make a thoughtful decision. Ordinarily, we were both very circumspect and cautious in our decision-making. In fact, our shipboard romance was the only rash, impulsive thing either of us had ever done. So, we did our homework, comparing real estate prices in various states and provinces, studied the rules relating to work visas, and discussed the merits of downtown versus suburban or country life.
We were happy planning our future, but things didn’t progress quite as quickly as I hoped.
I suppose, it’s always difficult to uproot, even if the tendrils gripping your ankles are relatively weak. Like most solitary people, we had established our own comfortable routines, and it was sad to contemplate abandoning them.
We made the best of it, though, communicating via long, intimate letters. It was like we lived in Victorian times, before the abomination of cell phones or face time. Neither of us were comfortable with on-screen simulacra, we were tactile people. In one missive, I told her that I missed staring into her beautiful eyes and playfully wished she could mail one of them to me. It was juvenile nonsense, but our relationship really was still defined by that silly “first love” intensity.
I was shocked when her package arrived, a few days later.
I carefully cut open the bulging reinforced envelope and removed a wrinkled, vacuum-sealed, plastic baggie. Inside, there was a gelatinous eyeball, finely veined and trailing a long optic nerve.
I examined the orb closely, noting that the iris was blue grey, flecked with emerald green, just like my love’s.
It made me smile.
She sold medical supplies for AmerisourceBergen, and the eye would have come from one of their academic dissection catalogues.
Probably.
I immediately wrote another letter and described how much I loved her fingers.
Sure enough, three days later I received a second package. I eagerly ripped the container apart exposing another small, vacuum-sealed bag. Inside, were two female fingers. The nails were long and decorated with intricate lift-bridge designs. (A talented esthetician on our cruise ship specialized in those miniature skylines).
My love had that same microscopic landscape painted on her nails while we were berthed outside of Chicago. That was a special time for us. We had both experienced a spasm of sadness that our cruise was more than halfway over, when we received the news of a wonderful two-day delay! Police needed to search the ship for a missing passenger, so we dragged deck chairs onto the old hatch coverings and basked in the sun like softly purring cats.
Of course, the fingers in this latest package weren’t my love’s, they were crude imitations of the ones I had held to my lips. These fingertips were coarse, and the amputation was a little sloppy as well—bone splinters protruded from the ragged proximal phalanxes.
And one of the fingers had a clunky ring squeezed against a knuckle, and my love detested jewellery of that type.
There was a letter inside the package. I held the paper close to my face and inhaled the intoxicating odor of jasmine and formaldehyde. The penmanship was delicate and regular, as if composed by a beautiful machine. I think I’ve sufficiently demonstrated the strength of my love, and it’s time for reciprocation.
Have you ever had the experience of complete and utter oneness? Of compatibility on an oceanic level, where physical distance is immaterial? I knew the nature of the reciprocity even before I read the following words:
The thing I miss most about you is your kind heart, and I would cherish it forever, my soulmate, if you would only send it to me, so I could caress that generous organ in my tiny hands.
Obviously, she didn’t need my actual heart any more than I needed her own eyes or digits.
She required a symbol of my love, but not a ridiculous Valentine cartoon, she wanted something incontrovertible.
Because we were soulmates, I knew exactly what she desired and, of course, I’d already charted dozens of lonely places where I could harvest it.
Mark Thomas is a writer and artist living in St. Catharines Canada. He has recently had five books published by indie presses (Next to Ewe, Paper Dragon, The Enclave, A Robot aGhost and an Alien Walk into a Bar, and Searching for Martian Slutfest IV.) Check out his work at https://flamingdogshit.com
Published 2/14/26