Posts
The morning is foggy,
shrouded in the marine layer the sea creeps in. He lives on this
island as his family has lived on this island their whole lives down
the generations, as a fisherman. The shore, ever changing and ever
the same bumps up against his calloused feet as he was absentmindedly
down the path to the water. No matter how many times he walks the
path, there is always a new stone in the moss and sand jabbing into
his foot; there is no clear footing in the fog. The sea is placid,
and almost always is. It is the peace of the water that holds the fog
to the pathway, grows moss upon the sharp rocks, and milder in the
sand. It is this peace that holds him here.
He carries the empty nets
across his back, slung from shoulder to shoulder. They are heavy on
his shoulder, but they remind him of his strength, so he carries them
not just for his livelihood but also for his memory. He feels the
sand turning icy and mucky, sucking around his feet, feels the stones
beneath his feet slowly becoming round and the fog thickens around
him. He absently notes that he is getting close to the water and his
heart lights with the hope at the splash beckoning him.
He thinks back to those few
days when he was a child and the sun drew the fog up from the earth
and warmed the sea. The sweet kiss of an open sky's freedom and the
wonders of the water's pregnant depths lighten his mind for a moment
before he sees his father calling to him from the cottage to pull the
nets to the shore. The sea that clashes against his skin is cold and
he opens his eyes to see the gray liquid surround him, the distant
splashing of fish in the waves. Now, just as then, he feels his duty
to his lineage, to himself for survival. This is what his father
taught him, and his father, and his father down the family line: to
take from the sea what they can.
Few fish live here now.
Generations had fed and gorged themselves on the plenty of the sea
yet ever kept fishing, never satisfied by what the sea had offered up
to them. As life drained from the sea, so the sea stilled and so the
fog crept in upon them, covering their eyes and muting the music what
little life left played in the wind.
He walks along in the
shallow water, mirroring the shoreline while his eyes scan the water
for the drop-off. The water darkens a few feet in front of him and he
wonders where the fish have gone as he ties and coils the hand line
around his wrist. Then he hears the water moving, sees ripples coming
toward him. He grabs the net half an arm's length down and checks for
tangles as he divides it in half and rolls the top portion over his
thumb.
He stands there mid-motion;
every muscle memory paused as his thoughts slowly move about as a
school of fish in winter waters. Perhaps there is life beyond the
fog. If he leaves maybe he will find a sun above warm waters where
fish are plentiful. His hand slides down from thumb to the net's lag
line as other men might slide their hands over a woman. But he has
not known a woman. He is a fisherman on an island deserted by the
others as the fog remained and thickened. All he knows is fishing.
His father had refused to leave and so now he refuses to leave there
is none left to refute.
His fingers feel for the lag
line again and grasp the midpoint between the net halves, bringing it
to his lips as his fingers follow the edges down again and grab hold
of the net's top half along the lag line. He watches for the ripples
as a distant splash whispers hope in his ear through the fog. The net
is salty in him ought but he is used to it, has been seasoned with
the salt through and through. Holding the lag line and half of the
net in one hand with the handline and net in the other, he curves his
body around and swings them all out over the darker ocean. He stands
in the icy water, hand line still about his wrist, and gazes over the
ocean wondering when life will return, where the sun had gone to, and
why nothing can permeate the fog.
The water turns mucky as the
day progresses and the water shifts away from the shore. He braces
himself against the rough, moss-covered edges of rock at his feet and
begins hauling in the net. But the net is light and it is easy to
pull in, which makes his heart heavy with disappointment. Seaweed and
slimy ocean much cover the net, only two fish lie in the net,
brilliant colored scales flashing sharp light into his eyes. He
sighs, it will be another meager day of meals, but perhaps tomorrow
the fishing will be better. He empties the net of the garbage it has
dragged up from the ocean floor. He hears a splash out in the fog,
yes, he thinks, life is returning.
There is no life here. She
waits. She watches. The fisherman has grown from boy to man, no
longer free to fancy the unknown. He has bound himself with blood
ties to the shore. When he was a boy he would swim out with her and
they would swim together in the sea, wondrous with life. But those
waters were far, very far, from his cottage home. The older he grew
the closer to the shore he stayed, not even boating while he fished
now. She weeps in the sea while she waits for him in the morning.
She sees him walking down to
the shore empty nets across his back like lash marks of hurts past.
She calls to him in her sing-song way. He does not even lookup. Her
voice is lost in the fog. She pushes herself out of the water,
splashing and waving, beckoning him out to her. She sings of warmer
waters where the sun shines deep into the waters and winds tickle the
waves, but he is deaf to her.
She pleads over dead waters,
recalling the times they had played as children in the sea. "Escape
the island," she offers, "swim the depths with me again,
let us find life together." He stares out over the sea,
unseeing, un-hearing, an ocean creature himself who has been beached
on the shore too long.
The sea is as lifeless as
his eyes and it breaks her heart for him.
He walks along the shallow
water and she swims closer to him, a satchel over her shoulder
bearing gifts. For a moment, it seems he senses her and she smiles
despite herself and the warning in the back of her mind. Perhaps, she
thinks, he will see today. But he is readying his nets, his eyes
unfocused. She says his name and he pauses. She is so close to him if
only he would come back to the sea. Be with me, she beguiles, and
come see where the life has gone. And it seems as if he hears her
offer. Please, oh please return to me, she begs over the swamp-like
shallows.
But his hands are at work
with the net again. She flings her satchel into the water, disturbing
the glassy surface. Fury pulses through her, for his blindness, for
his entrapment by those who raised him, by her inability to break him
from himself. She dives under the waters and clutches the satchel to
her, immediately repentant and heartbroken. Her tears mix with the
sea as the net hits the surface above her. She panics and swims a
short distance away, fearful of being caught in those terrible lines.
She returns to the surface,
peeking out above the waters, hopeless with another attempt failed.
She watches him from the sea until the tide begins to ebb. She
returns to the net as he begins pulling it up. She carefully empties
her satchel into it as it closes. Two fish from her homeland, and a
pearl from her garden, and scales from her tail. The water is turning
foul as the muck condenses. The foul waters weaken her, they sicken
her a little more each day, but she continues to return for him,
hoping. She swims to deeper waters and watches as he picks out the
fish and disposes of her treasures, hidden by the muck. Anguished,
she flings herself back into the sea and begins the long journey
home.
No comments:
Post a Comment