The one that got away (standard:fantasy, 3112 words)
Author: Santu	Added: Nov 23 2001	Views/Reads: 3090/2190	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
gone fishing lately. hope you enjoy this little fish story. please do me the honor of sending some feedback to improve my writing. thanks. enjoy

The one that got away......The thoughts and sights that played across
one day 

The harvest have come and gone. Old man winter’s cold hands were feeling
its way through the night. The moon is the hunter tonight. He rides his 
majestic chariot across the sky bathing the valley in a ghostly blue 
glow. The mountains loomed around like hooded figures, formless and 
mysterious, in shades of black. The night with all its mysteries were 
shrouded in a peculiar silence that was broken by the silky rustling of 
the leaves by the north wind rushing its way down the valley. A little 
stream stole across the landscape almost like a thief marked only by 
the soft murmur of her song and the gray smoke that rose lazily like 
phantoms from her wake. 

And there I sat on a ledge by the little stream holding the old fishing
rod that my father gave me. The only thing left from my childhood. Only 
thing that reminded me of those happy times. How cruel is time? I 
haven’t been fishing in almost a decade. A decade? Where has it gone? 
What have I done?  At the age of twenty-one I have nothing of any 
consequence to show for it. I feel fatigue of a man that has lived well 
beyond it. And yet the smell of my mother’s milk has not completely 
left me.  The mysteries that awed me as a child no longer interest me. 
Not even the mysterious man on the moon or the peculiar little 
fireflies that seem to come on and off in perfect cadence so far in 
sky’s velvety robe hold any wonder. I wonder in awe no longer. All of 
the childhood innocence was replaced by cynicism and “scientific 
reasoning” that were taught to me by the “educated”. 

What compelled me to go fishing after all this time, I do not know.
Perhaps it may be the longing for the past or the search for something 
new or may even be looking for something lost. Either way, I sat on the 
makeshift chair carved out from the clay bank of the little stream 
waiting for a tug from a friend that was long forgotten. I laid my head 
against the soft grass and looked up. 

All the thoughts of the secular world that were cascading through my
head just stopped dead. All the stars of the heaven seem to come out to 
play all at the same time. I see Orion with his bow getting ready for 
the hunt. And Canis Major, Pegasus, Sagittarius, and Scorpio all seem 
to be playing across the night sky. From the corner just above the 
horizon I could see Pisces peaking its head as Delphinus jumped over 
the moon as if to show off. Virgo rode Centaurus squealing with 
laughter as lonely Hercules played a lullaby on Lyra to put the twins 
of Germani to sleep. All these names came to me as if my father and 
mother were right there telling me of their amazing stories. While 
watching the on going circus of the night, the hypnotic melody of the 
northern wind along with the stream whispering sweet nothings to me 
slowly... ever so slowly to a land where dreams are reality. The bright 
shafts of light that had begun to hit the mountains awakened me from a 
blissful sleep. The valley was no longer silent, but a cacophony of 
sounds that bear witness to the richness of life around me. I looked 
the rod that I cradled throughout the night and noticed that my 
favorite fly was missing. I looked at the brush near me and found no 
site of it. The leader looked as it had been stretched and broken off.  
I looked at the little stream and doubted that any fish big enough to 
rip the fly off swam in the water. “Hello over there young man. Any 
luck this morning?” 

I was startled out of my wonderment and saw an old man who was dressed
in old clothes with a fishing west filled with brightly colored flies 
walking my way. He had shaggy hair that was gray from the years. A 
slender built, straight back and a confident step that told he was very 
familiar with the valley. His face was split in a huge smile that made 
deep creases around his mouth and around his eyes. Furthermore, his 
face was colored in a deep coppery tone that told of his time spent in 
the sun.  Despite the chill in the air he wore a woolen with the arms 
bear. His right arm seemed to be slightly bigger than the left and the 
forearm muscle well developed in than the left arm. It was a telltale 
sign of a veteran fly fisherman. “well...? Do you speak English or are 
you deaf? Habla espanol?” He asked jovially. “Sorry. I am just 
surprised to see anyone this part of the stream” I said “its hardly a 
popular leg of the stream” 

“ Well you do speak English!” said he with mock astonishment “ a bit
slow at getting up in the morning are we?” 


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