The Open Boat

Out on the open ocean the young man floated
in his Boston Whaler, rocked by the waves which
wrestled both sides of the boat as they passed under it.
He cast his line without agency; it was the early dawn of Sunday.
At length, the young man began to hum, thinking to himself
that his boat was but a rocking chair, he a babe swaddled in cloth
being soothed to sleep by a loving mother.
To the open blue on all sides he called out, “I am Santiago!”
and waited somewhat longingly for a reply.
Sometime later, a fish was hooked upon his line and he jumped
up, now with boyish glee, and began to dance around the boat
spinning and kicking as he reeled the fish in.
“Come home, brother,” the young man yelled over the side to the fish
still caught onn his line. “I have a nice cold ice chest waiting for you
up here!” But relentless in life, the fish battled on, refusing to
cede its vitality to the young man who waited above it, angelic.
Time passed with no success in getting the fish out of the water,
and the young man began to grow impatient.
“Enough, brother, it is time for you to return home,” he said,
“I am a lion and you are my dinner. I have spent many long nights
dreaming of you, and now here you are, just out of reach of my paws.
Come here, brother. Climb up into my boat. The ice chest is still
cold.” But the fish would not comply. It fought bravely, struggling hard
against the young man’s rod, which bent and twisted as he battled,
face red, breathing heavily.
Then, the young man felt an enormous tug on the rod, so strong
it was nearly wrenched from his hands.
“That is hardly fair, brother, to have tricked me into using all of my strength
only for you to be much stronger yet. You have played me for a fool brother,
but I will not give in!”
And with a back-snapping tug, the boy gave the rod a yank and with it came flying up
the fish. But it was not the whole fish.
It was just the head, attached snugly to the hook at the end of the rod.
The rest of the body was gone, stripped away by something from the deep.
Just sinews and strings of bone left,
to prove that there once had been a living, breathing fish hooked on the young man’s rod.
That night, the young man slept restlessly.
He dreamed he was a lion, stranded in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight.
his paws paddling ceaselessly and directionless, and fish swam under him
and nibbled at his paws from below.