Periwinkle

"When the wind was in the east a smell came across the harbour from the shark factory; but today there was only the faint edge of the odour because the wind had backed into the north and then dropped off and it was pleasant and sunny on the Terrace." 
    – from Old Man and the Sea





What was it about the sound of the Willet Sandpipers against the soft crash of waves?  All other sounds had faded away.  This was the sound of something quite natural and to the human ear in this day and age 

so unusual that in its primitiveness, its simplicity, it was unusual.  The Grandfather had watched the set of ten or so sandpipers scuttle up and down to the beach line as the crystal waves lapped up onto the sodden sand then back again.  It did not make him sleepy but instead opened up daydreams of their first visit to this part of Florida at Lighthouse Beach at Sanibel, just around the corner from here at the refuge island 

of Caya Costa.  He formulated an image as his granddaughter built up a working mound of periwinkles.  "I know now our next project.  Do you see the color of the horizon," he asked her, who had now become the beach itself, knees coated by hot sand, only the jewels of the world in mind.  He answered for her, "it is orange and therefore time for a fire. Would you mind if we used your periwinkles?"  
    "This is a treasure pile for somebody who comes here next time," she insisted, rolling out, with a swoop of her hand, a pile, flattened, jingling down into the sand.  "Many years ago we were shown something with the periwinkles.  Did you know many of them were still living?"  This seemed to surprise the granddaughter considerably. She picked one up and examined close to the eye as if a jeweler checking for carats.  

The air cooled some against their backs.  The willets now, like a little tribe, marching away against the orange of the moving horizon line.  "I have a way that we could keep the shells but."  He stopped here momentarily, as if to test the proposition before it even came in her eyes.  They asked.  "At Sanibel 

Lighthouse once we were shown how to eat them as delicacies."  The old man had already assembled some driftwood from  above the water line and had set them down in a small pile, which she had not yet paid attention to.  He bent over to the wood on his knees, chilly enough now to hurry. "We should leave back for the mainland in an hour or so, but I would like to heat some of your catch first.  We will simply set them around the rocks, like this, and I will show you how to eat a periwinkle.  They are like little honeycombs of the sea!"  The girl did not easily part with her treasures, but began to bring some of them in small handfuls around the rim of the rock of the fire.  

He picked one up after it had warmed, found the opening of the small shell, sucked to get some of the seawater and initial meat, then took a small stick and poked inwards before the rest of the contents released.  "Just like that.  It takes some work.  If you try five it will be as good as dinner...."