Remember to say I Love you...

"It's getting impossible to hear you" said the young girl from her bedroom in Manhattan. "I'll holler if I have to" said her friend from his bedroom in the Sixth Borough...


'The string between them grew incredibly long, so long it had to be extended with many other strings tied together: his yo-yo string, the pull from her talking doll, the twine that had fastened his father's diary, the waxy string that had kept her grandmothers pearls around her neck and off the floor, the thread that had separated his great- uncle's childhood quilt from a pile of rags. Contained within everything they shared with one another were the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, and the quilt. They had more and more to tell each other and less and less string.     


'The boy asked the girl to say 'I love you' into her can, giving her no further explanation. 


'And she didn't ask for any, or say, 'That's silly' or 'We're too young for love' or even suggest that she was saying 'I love you' because he asked her too. Instead she said, 'I love you'.  The words travelled the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, the clothesline, the quilt, the birthday present, the harp, the tea bag, the tennis racket..


'The boy covered his can with a lid, removed it from the string, and put her love for him in a shelf on the closet. Of course, he never could open the can because then he would lose the contents. It was enough just to know it was there.'

(from 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close- Jonathan Safran Foer)


(images: google)