Mossy Altar

“I will go to the shore,” he said without looking at her, “will cast into the sunrise.”

The red snappers were running close to the large rock from where he could reach them with a hundred yard of line.  Yellow line ending in a Finnish hook.  Frozen squid or shrimp to hide its sharpness.

The morning walk to the rock was a primordial celebration.  Like an altar reaching the frothy vastness of the restless waters, the rock served as his moment, his stand against the passing of times.  He has been there as a boy, trembling to the fight a sea bass would propose.  He recalls his first fish, his first deep inhale on a rolled cigarette, and his first loneliness because of a woman.  Always upon that rock.  In time, the rock had become mossier, in spots.  The incessant crash of waves, from lands he never knew, had given the rock a character he liked.  In the early lights, the mist was all embracing.  During sunsets, the last fish in his basket was cleaned on that rock.  Like an altar.  Like a sacrifice.  And always in thankfulness.

… This morning, his breath smelled of his woman as he inhaled deep the saltiness of the mist which welcomed him to his beloved rock.  The shrimp was half-frozen; his fingers were half-numb.  He cut the shrimp in half, threaded the hook so the sharp point exited between the eyes of the shrimp and formed a strange curl opposite to its antennae.  He coughed his morning cough, raised the long pole with both arms as if an ax, and cast as far as he could.  Into the rising sun.

Almost instantly, he forgot about the fish.  About the yellow line linking him now with the deep of the waves.  He scratched his unshaved chin and looked for cigarettes.  The rock was not for fishing.  The rock was his moment to forget about time.  To forget that once he was a boy dreaming of fish and women.  To forget that his life had been a constant hope that his cast would reach someone.  Somewhere. No, the rock was not for fishing.  It was the last point before the deep of the unda curled over and fell upon shores afar. 

… As the sun covered the sea in yellow and bright, he could not see his line anymore.  But he could feel it.

July 15, 2013

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013