Fisherman

He was a fine fisherman… always had been… even since childhood fish just seemed to come to him naturally… just like that… bait or no bait… just like they jumped on his hook and in his nets… so much fish he caught… more than he could eat… more than his needs would meet… he gave it all away… the fish made him think… did him good… told him stories of worlds yonder… sometimes he felt he could swim like a fish… go under water share their world… become fish again… but for the time being… time suspended… time standing still… the fish looked like they were dancing on the water… in the shatters of the sun specks raining down on the water…

Life was good to him… and he loved life… all life and all lives…

A Christian born and bred he knew what fish meant… and fish meant life… but he never was much of a religious man…

One day he would run away… fly away or at least sail away from this village… across the land across the sky across the sky across the sea… away from his small town… he would have a boat of his own and go fish on the high seas… and never return… or never return the man he was…

The boy became a man… and had to prove he was… they sent him to war to kill other men like him… other fishermen probably who had nothing but life to their names… and lost it… in the hell of army life wasted to foreign lands killing foreign brothers in arms… he lost track of life as it was… and lost himself in the mayhem of life… as that life meant death… he was a lost soul…

After the aftermath of that war he found himself back home… faced with nothing and no one but himself… and a life he didn’t know what to do with… all his life was had been death… and all the people he had known were dead… he had lost his taste for life… he was hungry no more… he was angry… angry with the world angry with himself… didn’t do much with himself… didn’t sleep much… didn’t eat much… had lost his appetite… couldn’t face meat couldn’t face fish…

A wandering man he found himself by the river again watching the sun on the water… and found suddenly they were all there… and they looked alive… they talked to him… told him there was plenty of fish in the sea… in the water… waterlight… water of life… featherlight life…

He remembered now… he remembered the days when the fish were full of like and they came to him like they couldn’t wait to die for him… for him to live… but wait… no that wasn’t life… life doesn’t mean for others to die for you… nor for you to die for others… but to live for others…

He went fishing again… and the fish came… like they had been waiting for him… for his return… but this time all the fish he caught he threw back in the water… and that made him happy… happy again… for the first time in a long time… he didn’t need to eat fish anymore… he didn’t need to kill to live anymore… he had gone vegetarian… fish meant life…

Jesse CRAIGNOU

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