Deep Peace

It was early morning and the mist frothy and cool lingered above the murky waters of the lake. The darkness began to retreat from the sky revealing the birth of a new day. Patches of slick green grass rose from the still lake like ancient titans. They stood there tall and proud amidst an ever changing world. Beneath the surface of the water existed creatures older than man. They whispered a tune so beautiful and mysterious that all could hear it if they only chose to listen.


An old rickety dock rested over the water and carried on its decrepit back five shadows. Five fishing lines dredged the bottom of the pond and waited for something to pass and bite.


Grandfather stood rigid at the end of the dock. Reeling slowly, his old hands grasped the rod. They were carved in thick lines like maps of time. He looked down into the placid water and saw a wrinkled heap of skin swathed around weakened bones. Those brittle eyes left the mirrored image, and scrunching his face he stared into the thick white cloud. He knew what land lay on the other side of the lake through that wall of white: Tumbling hills that swept through vibrant green valleys and a river that branched from the lake like the limb of a tree and stretched through the ages. He stood there and wondered if the mist would soon clear. Then he felt his hands ache from clutching the rod, but he continued to hold on.


Behind grandfather crouched his son, who held onto his youngest boy. They held onto their own rod pulling gently at the lever on the reel and turning it counter clockwise. The little boy’s face lit up as the line pulled back and started to move through the water in frenzy, back and forth, side to side. Thrashing about, the fish struggled to escape the lure. The father laughed and whispered in his son’s ear. Keep turning the lever and make sure you pull. We’ve got him. A smile opened up on the boy’s face and his pristine young skin glowed vibrantly. Below the surface, the fish glided through the cool water followed by a stream of blood. Its mouth opened and closed in protest. From terrified panic, the fish lost all of its strength to fight. With mouth hooked, the fish erupted from the water and onto the dock. It flopped about gasping for the familiarity of water. The boy’s father cut the line with his gentle hands and pulled the hook from the fish’s tiny mouth. As he held the creature, it seemed to go calm and it lay there staring with lifeless eyes. Its stomach rose up and down. Deep within all that tissue beat a heart, and it pumped blood throughout that small body. Ok son now put him back. The boy didn’t protest. He took the squiggling creature from his father’s hands and held it in his own. Fragmented lines coursed through the folds of his tender skin. Roughly hewn, slimy scales rubbed against his fingers and he smiled and gazed at the tiny paths that ran all across the fish amidst other beautiful patterns. The fish squirmed and then leapt back into the water.


On their right side stood the oldest of the three boys. His head was hunched beneath the dark rim of the hood on his coat. He ambled about the dock, stopping to glance at them as they fished. Excitement burst from his father and younger brother as they handled the fish and then threw it back. His features contorted into an ugly scowl. He saw their happiness and their smiles and he cringed every time his father laughed and his brother giggled. Disgust and inferiority crept onto his flesh like carnivorous worms and burrowed a hole deep into the pit of his chest. They crawled through the many orifices that opened and closed and heaved blood throughout the body. Arteries clogged and trembled. A heart was beating there in scatter shot rhythms and his head pounded from an unknown barrage. Turning around, he shook his head and squeezed his fists into bizarre plum colored objects. Stumbling off of the dock, he labored angrily over roots and dense bush.


The third boy stood behind his grandfather and gazed at his father and younger brother. His face glimmered with curiosity, but it soon faded and he turned to watch his grandfather fish. He gawked at the man, an aged and stoic statue. Wrinkled hands turned the lever on the reel with a mysterious precision. In the water the line rested casually. Grandpa pulled back on the rod. A beam of patience emanated from his soft and matured eyes. He watched the water and never once turned away. He was waiting for the bite to come, and the boy knew that he would stay as long as he had to for as long as he could. Little budding eyes twinkled and the boy hopped over to the elderly man and tugged at his shorts. The boy’s eyes pleaded. Grandpa woke from his trance and looked down at the boy with a deep grin. “Ok” he whispered.


And so he pulled the boy close and gave him the rod and showed him how to fish just as he had shown his own son many years ago. Clutching the rod, the boy slung the line backwards and then flung it back over their heads and into the water. A small splash sounded out and into their ears fluttered a primordial song. They watched the water before them with keen eyes. It lay still and reflected back to them their image, two gentle beings captured in their essence. An aura of promise radiated from the blissful spring that had begun to surge through the boy’s body. It flowed through his blood and grandfather knew that the spring would never empty. It was recycled and passed through all. Then grandfather lifted his arm and placed it onto the shoulders of his grandson. They waited.


Grandpa looked down at the boy and stretched his face into a frail smile. It lingered there when he heard the blissful echoes of his son and youngest grandson behind them. The oldest grandson was gone from the dock and the old man’s smile faded as he watched the young man meander into the woods. Contorted tree limbs waved hello and then wrenched the young man into the dense dark with the power of an unmerciful archaic timber. Grandpa’s gaze drifted towards the water. Old eyes moved side to side and drooped. Then he looked across the lake as the sun rose higher into the sky and revealed a natural world crafted from millions of years of brilliant fruition. Of beauty in becoming. He gazed into the distance where the lake ended and the river valley began. He saw the great waterway as it surged throughout a sprawling country. In time they would move on with their rods and their lines to fish there.