Member-only story
The Fisherman and His Pond
The sad story of a happy man
The fisherman sits alone now by the old pond. His aged bones ache and his straw hat is as tattered as his will. The blue jeans he now washes for himself are faded with better memories, but his old pipe is as steadfast as ever and the smoke rising in fragrant plumes engenders a familiar calm. The wrinkled stories enshrouded in his leathery skin mirror the ripples on the surface of the water blown up by the warm summer breeze, ephemeral. The clear spot on the bank is as comfortable as any rocking chair, worn bare by decades of quiet contemplation and laughs. Saplings he knew as a boy now cool the pond in the shadows of their vast canopies, having supplanted their forebears. Tall grasses speckle the bank and sway, faded green and blond with the laziness of the day.
The fisherman recasts the line on the end of his cane pole without checking to see if there’s still a worm on his hook. He hasn’t caught a fish since he started coming here alone. That is to say, he’d certainly caught fish while he had come here by himself, but not since he started coming alone. As he casts his line, he casts too his mind, back to the beginning, back to the wonders of the pond for a boy.
“Come one, grandpa!” the fisherman says, cresting the little hill for the first time and seeing the pond bloom like an oasis. He is six…
