Later
much later, he imagines it somewhat like the ebbing of a high tide.
The exact point of it's turn indiscernible under a fecund moon. When the fish suddenly stop biting the fisherman, so intent on the next bite, only realises it is already departing when he next pulls his hook to the surface and finds it not missing bait as he thought, but ignored and untouched. More so, that first clear sign is disbelieved as an aberration and the line is swiftly run out once more and fingered optimistically, patiently
waiting until
finally it is only the tardy arrival of the grotesque....
eyeless pilchards festooned with sea lice, guts distending and the unbecoming writhe of a Port Jackson shark slapping against the gunnel, fantastical and disturbing in the moonlight, which irrefutably signals the now vast emptiness of the sea. Removing the hook from deep in the fish's impossibly white throat, recognition of some shared futile and primordial febrility gnaws deeply at the fisherman's gut... and he sits unblinking, barrenly attempting to reconstruct the point where time and tide stopped and
waited
before slipping away unseen.
much later, he imagines it somewhat like the ebbing of a high tide.
The exact point of it's turn indiscernible under a fecund moon. When the fish suddenly stop biting the fisherman, so intent on the next bite, only realises it is already departing when he next pulls his hook to the surface and finds it not missing bait as he thought, but ignored and untouched. More so, that first clear sign is disbelieved as an aberration and the line is swiftly run out once more and fingered optimistically, patiently
waiting until
finally it is only the tardy arrival of the grotesque....
eyeless pilchards festooned with sea lice, guts distending and the unbecoming writhe of a Port Jackson shark slapping against the gunnel, fantastical and disturbing in the moonlight, which irrefutably signals the now vast emptiness of the sea. Removing the hook from deep in the fish's impossibly white throat, recognition of some shared futile and primordial febrility gnaws deeply at the fisherman's gut... and he sits unblinking, barrenly attempting to reconstruct the point where time and tide stopped and
waited
before slipping away unseen.
2 comments:
Nice. Is this a follow on from the last post or something else?
i hear, that's a very nasty feeling; but better to have sat the wrong side of a turning tide than never to have fished at all...
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