Black and White Summer

This flash fiction was inspired by a photo prompt that I unfortunately don’t have the right to share. You the reader get to imagine the scene for yourself this week! Enjoy! *********************************************

Gramps kept the old black and white postcard in his wallet, folded up neatly to fit in a card slot. Sometimes he would take it out and gently unfold it, smooth it with a caress of his fingertips the way he touched Gram’s hair. I asked him once what was so important about a gray picture of a boat and trees. He gave me a long look and then handed me the creased and worn card.

“My brother was eighteen that summer,” he said. “I was ten. Wasn’t much we did together anymore, but we did like fishing.” Gramps put his hand on my head and ruffled my hair, staring into the distance with a half smile. “That summer he told me to pack my camping gear, we were headed upriver for a week. We threw sleeping bags, fishing poles, and a frying pan in an old boat he’d scrounged up and caulked and set off for a boy’s heaven.”

“Did you catch lots of fish?” I wondered.

“Enough to fry every day,” he chuckled, “but mostly we swam, chased each other up and down the bank, and slept in the sun. It’s a wonder the snakes didn’t carry us off; mosquitoes sure tried. Once, the boat sprung a leak. Not a bad one, but we were taking on water. Jack showed me how to stuff moss in the crack and caulk it with mud.”

“Did it work?”

“Well… not too well,” Gramps admitted. “But we were having too much fun to care. I’d never spent so much time with Jack, just the two of us.”

He sighed. “He enlisted the next day, headed to the Pacific. We were dirt poor and there were no photos, but I found this in a drugstore a week after Pearl Harbor. It may look like a boat to you, but to me that’ll always be Jack.”