fisherman: or, autobiography

There was water. Forever.

The fisherman lay there. He lay on his back, staring upwards into the glaring
grey-white sky. It was wool, illuminated from behind by a sun that didnt seem to be
in any one place. Was it hiding from him? Was it ever there to begin with? The
fisherman had never really bothered checking up on it until now. The rocks nipped
at his back. They were reminding him that he didnt belong there, not that he
needed it. White and blue and grey and black and green and white and blue and
grey and black and green. If he were a poet the fisherman might admire the way
that they spilled down the coastline like gems for ceaseless miles. But he wasnt a
poet.
He was weary. The wind played around, conspiring with the rocks as it stung
at the exposed flesh on his fingers and face. He exhaled slowly and watched his
cloudy breath disappear. Time was crawling, or maybe it was sprinting, and the
fisherman wasnt sure how long he had been spread out among the beach.
The fishermans arms rested limply at his sides. Tenderly, he coaxed them
underneath himself and rose to his knees. The rocks moved at their chance,
crackling softly as they wrestled to dig into new slabs of flesh. The hood of his
smock, pulled by the wind, crumpled off the top of his head and exposed his ears. In
front of him was the black. It was impenetrable and inky save for the hoary crests of
the chop. It slopped gently against the stones on the beach- toying with the weaker
ones. It pulled them out and, for the lucky few, returned them with a tap. The water
swept further out and further down. Down and out and deeper and yawning into
abyssal foulness. It did not suffer life. It had swallowed the ship and men. And it had
wretched him up upon the rocks. The fisherman wondered why it had done this. And
the fisherman knew the water would not answer.
To hell with you then, he whispered. The fisherman pulled himself to his
feet. He turned his back on the water and found a wall of grim-faced spruce trees
leering at him. He leered back. Some were dusted with snow, others were sheathed
in frost. They looked as though their blood had been drained. They were ghosts with
hints of what would have be called green and brown and grey. They were crowded
tightly together in way that darkened the spaces between. They formed an
impenetrable, spiny mass that shivered with the wind. However, no matter how
wildly they protested, the ice clung to them like the sores of a leper. This was a
hateful place.
The fisherman knew that he would get lost in the trees and, in all likelihood,
they would stretch on for hundreds and thousands of miles. That is, until they hit
the granite blades of mountain peaks. There were two choices for the fisherman. To
stay or to walk south down the coast as far as he could before the cold took him.
The wind gave a pithy gust and drew back his smock and waders with bony snaps.
He realized then that the entirety of his clothing, inside and out, was soaked
through. He knew that, in a matter of hours, he would be dead.
So the fisherman made his choice. He gave the water one last grimace and
made his way along the edge of the water. The black lapped against the rock and
speckled his lower half, adding a few more crystals to the many already clinging to

him. The loosened rocks gave way as he walked, begging him to lose his balance
and snap his ankle. He looked down at them with disdain.
Slothful, he whispered to them. The fisherman did his best impression of
the chastisement he once received from a priest when he was a boy. They did
nothing but lay about and ask that he do the same. He could feel them conspiring
with one another under his rubber boot, trying to reduce him, make him fall, make
him surrender, make him nothing. Off to his left he heard the snap of twigs and
branches in the trees. He furrowed his brow as he peered over, seeing no concrete
sign of life. Anyway, he never really liked animals much, he never really liked people
much. Perhaps that is why, he thought to himself, he chose a profession where all
that was needed of him was to murder millions of dead-eyed, soulless fish.
The Trawler had given the fisherman plenty of time to think. Second to mass
killing, thinking was what the fisherman was best at. He would stare aimlessly into
the water, ignoring completely the shuffled mumbling of the other men as he tried
and failed to pierce the blackness with his worn out eyes. He had dedicated every
moment to discerning the fundamental answers to inane questions. He had
wondered what the bottom of the water might look like or how high the pile of salt
might be if the sun, having elected to do its goddamned job, had dried up all the
water in the black.
The fisherman slipped. His arms flailed outwards and he caught his balance
before disaster had struck completely. He swore at the rocks and reached down,
swiping up a dull green fellow about the size of a baseball- though without the
gaiety. Pivoting on his right heel, he used the weight of the stone to build up a bit of
momentum before he let it loose towards the water. It didnt fly far and landed with
a smarmy, simple plunk. The black let up a fountain as it welcomed the new
addition. The fisherman exhaled at the effort. The breathy cloud exited in chops,
cleaved apart by the chattering of his teeth. He returned to his path and trudged
down the coast.
The fisherman had never cared much for the sun. He had heard others talk
about trips to exotic locations that were filled to the brim with its yellow cream. He
had heard tell of nude beaches and warmth and liquor tied up in coconuts. Some of
the men had planned to save up for a trip down south for a spell- sometimes with,
sometimes without, their wives or children. He had never seen anyone actually go.
There were the men with thick beards sticking out beyond the blue sheaths of
fishing smocks and others with bleary eyes and old wool hats and gnarled hands.
But there werent any men with suitcases or leisure suits or airplane tickets or
springs in their steps.
There they all were, every night, under the deck smoking hand-rolled
cigarettes and chasing those clouds with whiskey gulped from metal coffee mugs
that stung the fillings in their teeth. They had played cards and swore and dreamed
out loud to no one in particular. There was one man, Paul, who always insisted on
the impending reality of his sojourn to Mexico. He never went. He stunk of guts like
the rest of them, he swore, he drank, and he gambled. And just like the rest of
them, he had been swallowed by the water for no real reason. Now, he vacationed
in the salt and the chill and the dark.
Goodbye Paul, the Fisherman rasped at the water with a slight nod of his
head. When he had stepped foot on the slick deck of the Trawler it was Paul who

had been the first to introduce himself. In the beginning, the fisherman had thought
they were to be friends, but soon realized his benefactor was just a big talker who
needed an audience. He would always leave work a moment before the others. As
they were pulling in the lines and tying knots Paul was securing his section of
rigging. As they were securing their rigging, he was unbuckling his waders and
unzipping his smock. As they were unbuckling their waders and unzipping their
smocks, his head could be seen disappearing into the hold. He did this in order to
claim the choice section of bench that lay in the corner, behind the torn-up poker
table. From this blind he had a commanding view of the room and would chase the
mens exhaled smoke through the air with the force of his rumbling voice.
He talked. And he talked. And he talked. Sometimes he talked about Mexico,
other times he flattered the men, and at others he would ask his own brand of
profound, profoundly asinine, rhetorical questions. As he posed these grand queries
he would lean forward slightly, widening his eyes a touch, and cast a crawling gaze
over the men. Some, usually the boyish newcomers, nodded approvingly while
others met his gawking with frowns. Some ignored him entirely, and once in a blue
moon a man would deck him, throwing him back into the depths of his corner. He
always recovered though, the fisherman appreciated him for that.
He supposed that he should miss those men in the predicament he now found
himself in. But the fisherman did not miss the fishermen. He crawled forward
wrapped in frozen clothing and icy wind and cold memories. Indeed, the fisherman
felt nothing at all. Nothing for Paul, or the men, or the Trawler and no feeling for his
hands, or his feet, or his ears either.
Oh, he exhaled with a cutting chuckle, Im freezing to death.
The fisherman had never given much thought to the state of his body. He
never felt any real affinity to the vessel that carted around his directionless,
burdened, and shrouded-bright mind. The thought of it getting burned by a length of
rigging or filled full of bullets or rotting in the ground had never really disturbed him.
For, he thought, his body was not him. Though he didnt know what he actually was,
he was certain that his substance was more than a stack of raw meat. The
fisherman knew that he was more than a hefty slab of pink that, without a face of
fingertips, could be confused with a hunk of fish. He hoped, at least.
The fisherman also knew that the wind did not care what he believed or
didnt believe. It whipped up and around him, digging the soaked fibres of his
clothing deeper into his flesh and toying with his hood violently. It shook the wall of
spruce trees with an immense, unstoppable force and they submitted to it. The
shook and rustled in concert, forming an uncontrollable, unending, rushing choir. For
hundreds of miles past the treeline, the fisherman knew that millions of trees were
arranging a devastating storm of sound and fury and power. The old ones, too weak
to belong, would crack sharply and fall with a final whine and earthy crash. The
fisherman belonged amongst the trees as much as he did on the rocks or in the
black. They had existed forever and would continue to exist and grow and die after
the fisherman was gone. They were vast and innumerable and resolute, like the
stones under his feet, and would not tolerate his frailty. The wind screamed at him.
Minutes past, and then seconds, and then hours. The fisherman walked. The
fisherman stumbled. He marched on as a soldier does, with a decisiveness and a
purpose he does not know, but believes exists, somewhere. The sun was falling

down through the sky. The wool clouds obscured its location but the fisherman knew
that it would not be long. After all, the sun could always be relied upon to disappear.
Around him a deep, bitter purple began to overtake the faded greys, greens, and
browns around him. The treeline transformed into menacing silhouettes and the
rocks changed from mere dangers to skilled killers. When he could no longer make
out his footing before he stepped, the fisherman knew that he would inevitably
crumple into a bag of splintered bone and crystal blood.
He saw it then, in the last shreds of sunlight he made out a towering granite
wall in front of him. It stretched out hundreds of feet into the water and reached
high into the air. It was crowned with a few dark trees and a sheet of moss that
extended sparsely down its side. The fisherman had been immersed in the effort of
outsmarting the rocks and, until now, had not bothered looking up. This, the wall
commanded him, was the end of the line. He walked forward, steel faced and
shivering, and placed his naked left hand onto the rock face. It was angry and
detached and it despised both him and the water it thrust itself into. Despite its ill
will, he felt a kinship to the crag. The two had so long straddled the waters edge,
detached from land and suspicious and hostile towards the black. He smiled slightly
as fondled the rough surface and soft moss. This was it.
Without removing his hand, the fisherman turned to his right and faced the
black. He edged slowly forward and stepped first into it with his right boot. It
flooded around his feet, then his thighs, he stopped just before it spilled over the
top of his waders. At that moment darkness truly fell and the night had come. The
clouds erased the moon and the world became utter shadow. He stared forward into
the water but could not make it out from the sky, he peer out and squinted and
swore. He wished to see the foe that would kill him.
And then, he was blinded. A brilliant white reflected off of the water and
struck his senses as a hammer strikes hot steel. He rose his free hand to shield his
eyes and shelter his mind from the assault. And, as quickly as the light came, it was
gone. Is this death? the fisherman wondered to himself, How disappointing.
The light returned, shocking the fisherman only slightly less than the first
time. His mind was dulled by the frost but, by the time the light arrived for the third
time, he knew what had birthed it. On the other side of this rock face, there was a
lighthouse.
He charged forward. The water rose quickly past his waders and up into the
smock. He couldnt feel the chill anymore. By the time he arrived at the edge of the
outcropping it was up to his chest. The light came and went, and came and went.
Every time, the fisherman feared it would not return. He feared that it was a figment
of a dying mans imagination. Worried that the sand and mud under his boots would
suddenly give way to open water, he hugged the cliff and edged around its tip. And
then he saw it.
On the beach, built upon a concrete foundation a few feet thick was a stocky
red-bricked lighthouse. It was round and the side facing the water had been eroded
somewhat, its colours, illuminated by the immense light at the peak, were of a
darker hue than those facing the shore. It reached hesitantly into the sky, its tip did
not even extend further than the cliff face. As the fisherman edged towards it he
could make out wheelbarrows and tools and materials strewn about its base. This
lighthouse was planned by some failure of a man, to be taller. And, somehow, two-

thirds up its length was a robust, grimy window illuminated by light. However, this
was not the garish light of the towers lamp. Instead, it was the earnest, flickering,
heartfelt glow of an open fire. In that lighthouse there was a person enjoying the
glow of a fireplace or an oil lamp.
By the time the fisherman reached the rocky shore he was shaking
uncontrollably, either from exposure or the frenzy of hope, he did not know. He
rounded the curved of the tower and found an old wooden door carved into its side.
He could not restrain himself. With eyes blinded by surging tears he struck the door
over and over and over again with his numb fists. He cried out for help and kicked
the door and sobbed and hoped, beyond hope, he hoped. Then, he stopped. From
the other side of the door he could hear the echoing of footsteps on metal, the
sound percussed quietly at first, and then loudly, and always quickly. Someone was
descending the lighthouses spiral staircase. He watched the doorknob with wide
eyes. It turned.
And then there was warmth.