The Fisherman

It would not be unreasonable to suggest that perhaps I should never have been on those drugs in the first place, but it would have been little consolation to me or anyone else on the day in question.

Let's say that it was the 11th August 1982. The Sun shone brilliantly as never before (nor probably since!) in that beautiful part of Ireland known as Donegal. Here, the landscape is wild and rugged, not unlike it's people. The climate is more inclined to the kind of cold and damp which seeps into the essence of everything than to the brilliant sunshine of my recollection. Well, it was a bit of a strange day after all.

To say that "I wasn't working" was a bit of an understatement. I had been a Lecturer in Mathematics at a College of Technology but gave up on that job a couple of months earlier in an increasingly desperate attempt to turn my life around. It would be fair to say that I was in the market for a life-turning-around experience.

At some point in the previous six to eight years, I realised that I was becoming uninhabited, at least by anything recognisable to me as human. The relatively few years of alcohol and drug abuse had effectively removed everything of value. All that remained was a shell, a cardboard cut-out, glued together with a cocktail of prescription drugs. Gone was the spark of life, replaced by the living death of active addiction. I had long since stopped getting high but needed the drugs just to function, albeit not very well. Taking these drugs had become instinctive - as natural as breathing and every bit as necessary.

Such were the thoughts which crowded into my mind on that day when I decided to take myself off for a spot of fly-fishing. The fishing would be incidental of course, but then how would anyone else know that? No-one was invited to know very much at all about my life. I had sought to become invisible by encouraging people to believe that I was probably involved in lots of other people's lives, just not theirs!

My main reason for retreating into the wilderness on that day (as always) was to get as far away as possible from the few remaining people who still considered themselves to be a part of my life. There, I hoped to find the necessary time and space in which to confront my demons and once more to do battle with the interminable benzo withdrawals. I simply couldn't bear to be around people at all when I was falling apart.

On the little dirt track, a few miles out of town, I parked my car (yes somehow I still had a car - no personality, no peace, no hope, but still a car!) I trudged down through sloping fields which occasionally swallowed one of my legs up as far as the knee, before finally arriving at the riverbank.

Growing on the riverbank were a few little trees which afforded me some shelter. I took cover behind one of these in such a manner as to have the perfect, panoramic view of the surrounding hills whilst at the same time preserving my invisibility from any unwelcome spectators of this most private experience. In hindsight, there was probably no-one within 5 miles of me in any direction but a person can never be absolutely sure at a time like this.

Even in the pitiful state to which I had succumbed, it was still a relatively simple task to assemble the rod and cast my line. The scene was now one of a fisherman absorbed in his beloved pastime in a setting straight out of a picture-postcard, but this was little more than a sad illusion, a plausible charade.

The reality was just a little different. My head throbbed and every fibre of my being screamed in protest against the falling levels of the drugs in my system. This was no way for anyone to be. What was left of my mind was tormented by strange and dark thoughts.

At length, one of the demons which mocked me relentlessly questioned what might happen if I did actually catch a fish. It seems strange to admit it now, but up to that point the thought hadn't really crossed my mind and now suddenly I was forced to address the possibility.

I pictured the unfortunate creature thrashing about in a frenzied attempt to regain it's freedom. What if the barb had gone through its eye? I would be forced to confront the awful truth that I was incapable of removing a barb from eye, mouth or tail !!!

The thought was so abhorrent to me that I quickly acted on my next brilliant idea. Reeling in the line, I carefully removed the hook before casting into the river once more. At least I could now feel secure in the knowledge that my incompetence as a human being would not endanger the health and happiness of any creature unfortunate enough to find itself even further down the evolutionary scale than myself.

A sudden sense of shame swept through me with the realisation that in all probability, only people of a certain psychiatric disposition might be inclined to fish without bait or hook on their fishing-line.

"Not a soul must ever know what has happened here today" I told myself as I gathered my belongings and headed for home.

Frank