SISIMIUT—An expatriate assigned by NASA to track Arctic shelf thinning has announced plans to bump into his third-grade love interest while buying groceries, at which time their courtship can finally begin, as if by fate. Further updates indicate that three decades of near isolation can never hinder that which is meant to be.
It remains unclear when the chance meeting will occur.
“Oh, I don’t know,” the wistful Herbert Derevyanko, 42, said when pressed for specifics. “Who can say about these things? Surely it will happen when neither she, an Aries, nor I, a Pisces, expect it. Perhaps one day—an afternoon not unlike today—as I hustle about the trading outpost to gather dry goods before an early twilight, a familiar presence will linger near the animal hides. I’ll be slow to react at first. But as my gaze rises to meet hers, I’ll see.”
In addition to animal hides, popular local commodities include soapstone for toolmaking and ivory needles for draining blisters.
As for how he concluded that his reunion with Laurie Hobbes, a party planner living in Houston, will take place in such a context, Derevyanko explained: “When paths cross in the funny way that they have, it’s always at an Orange Julius or an Inuit trading post or some other silly place. She always loved making crafts, so I suppose she’ll be in the neighborhood picking up whale fat for sculpting.”
When asked about Hobbes’s marital status, he responded: “What?”
Meanwhile, the glaciologist remains in high spirits despite recently losing two fingers to frostbite in an outhouse mishap.
“It’s important to wear gloves when you leave your hut, and that means every time,” said an oceanographer living kitty corner on a neighboring ice sheet. “Herb just got a little hasty one night when he went out to move his bowels.”