the sixth borough;
young friends, whose string-and-tin-can phone extended from island to island, had to pay out more and more string, as if letting kites go higher. 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 grandmother's pearls around her neck and off of the floor, the thread that had separated his great uncle's childhood quilt from a pile of rags. 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 the can, giving her no further explanation, and she didn't ask for one. instead she said, 'i love you'. the words traveled the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, the quilt.
the boy covered his can with a lid, removed it from the string, and put her love for him on a shelf in his closet. of course, he never could open the can, because he would lose its contents. it was enough just to know it was there.