my head is swimming with thoughts; schools of unruly fish in an ocean of odd currents and riptides. it would seem i am a fisherman in this moment, net and basket, swooping to scoop up rainbow glimmering quicksilver flashes, draw them closer and study them.
there is a certain terrified exhilaration to life. breathless and expectant, shaking and anxious, filled with hope that clumps into dread and roils like curdled milk only to transform yet again as soon as sunlight is seen, noticed, warming, spreading, melting and shifting… honey… molasses… thickening delight that courses a time until the next shock or surprise.
i am, of course, lost in the stream. mind stream. stream of consciousness, the bend in the river where the flows meet the ocean; all choppy and chaotic, without any sense other than to be rushing wherever there is least resistance. splash, strike, fins in sunlight…. rushing outward into open waters, giddy and compelled. how much of a life is spent chasing grandfather marlin through the deeps?
it is an odd analogy, because most consider fishing a quiet and somewhat passive thing. but there is nothing passive in this and i suspect the excitement of the angler would as well belie the notion of silver-haired men and young boys peaceful on a dock, lapping of water and proximity and soul sharing until the bobber disappears.
i feel it now, that exhilaration. it is not unlike hunting. eyes tracking movement under shimmering waves, the motion calling wordlessly — treasure in the deeps. judging time, casting long, slow, smooth… net sinking into moisture and undulating rhythms matched by heart’s throb and pulse. motion in motion, swells of force and counter force, weight in the emptiness that foretells capture.
i… i lost the momentum. looks like grandfather marlin got the bait that time. chuckling to myself, i reach into the basket of chum and extract some bloodied thing that didn’t run fast enough… a memory, a pang, a freeze frame in which darker things dance. shoving it carelessly upon the hook, i grimace and wipe my fingers upon my sodden jeans then cast again… the net set aside for now, its catch flopping and asphyxiating in the floor of the boat – my little, paper boat.
grandfather marlin taunts me. it is a game we have played of old. i know his territory and he knows the sound of my oars; the particular way i so often slap the waters with them… angry, frustrated, impatience and longing all balled up in a flat, oak hand… striking the water as if somehow it is responsible. he chuckles at me. i can hear his great, bubbling laughter there, leagues below… sending up amusement to rock me as i growl and curse and offer bigger and more bloody morsels to the bastard.
i could not tell you what he is, even as i know him to the point of obsession. limerence, i suppose, an odd posideon-esque fascination that neither time nor tides bring relief. i laugh at myself, all ahab and annoyed while the great and pearl-like moby lashes laughter in the depths.
grandfather marlin is no whale, of course. and i am far from a salty sailor… for all i may curse like one now and again. still, it fits. chasing the great whale that would be understanding around the ocean of my own mind, willing to see it hoisted, harpooned and crimson if only it would be still, be held, be known and filleted by me.
it is a gruesome thing, but only because it seems i can never really learn until i hold the heart in my hands, feel it quivering its secrets, and have the coppery, tangy weight of it upon my tongue. in this, there is conundrum… for there are days when grandfather marlin is a perverse fish, my own personal great, white whale… and days when i am certain he rests in the boat with as much calculation and desperate intent as ever i do.
now we get to the hook. morsel of most delightful things, dangling. i see it flashing and hear it whisper promises and poems. graceful and ghostly, hanging silent in space, ripples in which the tendrils of gore float like lace scarves. do you see how crafty he is? no matter how close, a flick and wriggle and suddenly i am reminded of the paradox and it all slips away, he slips away… and i stand screaming curses to the lofty, laughing waters as he circles and glides beneath me.
tomorrow will be my turn. and i will as much glory in his curses as i know he does mine. memories of stolen bait and empty nets jumble with memories of snatching bait and laughingly flicking from under the woven weight at the last possible moment.
we are, of course, entwined. head and tail, sun and moon, earth and sky, and as many other dualities as you may remember. and it occurs to me that on the day either of us agree to be fully predator or fully prey, there will only be the ocean to remain… salty and sanguine, fed by our blood… for in truth the only bait i have are slivers of myself… and for all of life we have but fed upon one another, he and i… such eager little cannibals, lovingly chewing.