Gone Fishing

Gone Fishing

In Africa, up on the high plateau in the centre of the continent, there is a wide valley between a range of hills that march to the horizon. Through this valley wanders a river, a string of unconnected pools in the dry season, but a raging torrent after every storm in the rainy season. A dirt road, seldom used, crosses the river at the lowest point of the valley. The bridge that enables this is really a concrete dam erected to block the river’s flow and create a deep pool just above it. The dam is pierced by three enormous pipes, like tubes that run through the concrete, to allow the river an outlet when it rises high enough to reach them.

It was a crude but effective way to build a bridge. Most storms in the rainy season dumped enough water in the river for it to flow through the pipes. But it was only the heaviest storms that could fill the pipes right to the brim, forcing the water to race through the outlets and creating three powerful water spouts that poured the stream into the lower part of the river.

That was when it became possible to witness the barbel behaving like salmon, leaping into the wild torrents escaping under the bridge, and attempting to swim through and continue upstream. The African barbel is a very large catfish, not quite as big as its cousin, the vundu, but a serious catch for any angler worthy of his hooks. To see such fish jumping up from the river into the force of those gushing vents is a sight hardly to be believed. The most amazing thing, however, is that some of them make it all the way through the pipes and into the upper river.

In this way the pools of the dry season are populated by these massive creatures.

The boy seldom visited the bridge while wandering in the valley. It was at the far edge of his range in that direction and there was little to see there in the dry season. He preferred to run in the open veld with the red dog, sit under a tree by a pool, or try to catch guinea fowl in the long grass. But the rains lent more allure to the bridge and its deep pool so, after a storm, he would occasionally take the long trek bridgeward.

After the hardest rain he had ever seen, he decided that the bridge would be the place to be and he set out as the last, fat drops were landing. He walked quickly because he knew that the water spouts would be most spectacular for only a short time. Rain storms on the highveld last only for half an hour and, although they drop a tremendous amount of water in that time, it runs off or seeps into the thirsty earth as quickly as it has fallen.

As the boy approached the bridge from upstream, he could tell that the waters were in full flow. He had never seen the pool so full and the waters lapped over the banks in places. Underfoot the ground trembled with the force of the water rushing through the pipes and crashing to the rocks below.

Once on the bridge, he inspected the upstream side first. The water level was well above the top of the pipes and the only evidence of their existence was the quickened current that ran toward the bridge only to dip down as it was sucked into the outlets. The boy gazed down at the sight, enraptured by the might and urgency of the water.

The vibration beneath his feet tugged at his awareness, however, and he broke his concentration to move to the other side. He had never seen anything like the majesty that presented itself to him there. The water forced itself out of the three pipes in great, arcing fountains, far over the low pool below the bridge. White water boiled in this leap and crashed into the swirling pool with a sound like thunder.

Mesmerised by the sight, the boy remained looking down at the force of the water, unable to tear himself away. And then a bright flash detached itself from the raging pool and leapt at one of the pouring fountains. Before the boy could see what it was, it had disappeared into the racing stream.

Then another, and another, did the same thing and the boy could see what was happening. The flashes were huge fish leaping for all they were worth into the flow, desperate to make their way upstream. From their size, he knew they must be barbel, but he had never heard of them migrating like this. And he could not see whether any of them succeeded in the swim up the pipes. They disappeared as soon as they hit the water, so fierce was the flow.

The boy turned and moved quickly to the far end of the bridge. Here he could scramble down the slope to stand right at the the edge of the pool, with one hand on the bridge to steady himself. The water blasted forth from the nearest pipe, mere inches from his head. He was lost in the sound and force of it.

And then a barbel jumped from the pool and entered the fountain closest to him. He felt that he could have reached out and caught it. A few moments wait and another fish tried for the pipe. As fast as he could, he snatched at it but it was gone before he could touch it.

The boy removed his hand from the steadying bridge and prepared to grab the next fish with both hands. He crouched slightly and coiled himself like a spring ready to bounce back to its full length. With the water lapping at the toes of his shoes, he waited, a look of pure concentration on his face.

When the moment came, the boy was ready. Even as it erupted from the pool, he was reaching out to receive it, his body moving forward and legs straightening. His outstretched arms shot out to catch the creature and the fish, as though with similar intent, sailed through the air in an arc that echoed the fountain’s. In slow motion the curve of the barbel’s leap and the outward motion of the boy came together in mid-air and it seemed a long moment that they hung there, suspended above the pool and the crashing stream.

Then they were gone, disappeared like all the others into the white water.

For a long time the waters continued to rush though the pipes to batter at the pool. There was no sign of the boy or the fish that he had captured. In less than an hour the stream from the pipes lessened and the arc of their motion decayed until it became a mere dribble down the sides of the bridge. Quiet settled upon the scene again.

Above the bridge, in the upper pool, the boy’s head appeared briefly above the surface. It bobbed down again quickly and the wake of its movement showed it swimming upstream.


Word count: 1,188
For no particular reason
No prompt.