HOOKED

HOOKED

By A. ROSS GREENE
Approximately 600 words



“Damn it!” Charley shoved his wounded thumb in his mouth. It was the universal way to make the wound stop hurting as well as bleeding. He looked like a toddler sucking his thumb.
“What’s the matter dear?” Sue yelled from the kitchen.
Charley came in from the garage, which was attached to the kitchen side of the house. “I hooked my damn thumb. I’m liking fishing less and less,” he grumbled as he looked at his wound for the umpteenth time.
“You’ve been saying that for the last twenty years.” She turned towards the great fisherman. “Were you hurt bad?”
He looked up at her with half an irritable look. “Have you ever been hurt good for Pete’s sake?”
“Smart ass.”
With that he broke a slight smile. Ordinarily, he would have laughed at his own snappy retort, but the pain in his thumb prevented any further pleasure from it. “Hon, can you get me a glass of water, please. I’m kinda thirsty.”
“Yeah, I can. It’s just whether I will or not.” Sue stared at him with a smug little smile.
“Now who’s being the smart ass, hmmm?”
Sue didn’t respond. She pulled out a cup, filled it with water, and brought it to her distraught husband. “After you drink this why don’t you go and get cleaned up from your excursion, then I’ll put a bandage strip on your boo-boo.”
“All right,” was his puppy-like response. Five minutes later he was taking a nice hot shower. After a bit he was feeling some discomfort at the temperature of the water. He kept making the water cooler and cooler. Eventually he only had the cold-water running. When he began to rinse the soap off he noticed some discoloring and weird blotches on his skin. He also found himself having the water run through his mouth for longer and longer periods of time.
The blotches took on definite patterns. It looked like overlapping diamonds. What he was thinking disturbed him. He looked at his thumb. With a gasp of horror he realized that not only his thumb was missing but all of fingers as well. No. They weren’t missing. They were fused together. He looked down at his feet. They had done the same thing. The last human thought he had, as his body underwent metamorphosis was that he couldn’t believe he was turning into a fish.
* * *
“I knew it would be just a matter of time, Charley, before you would prick yourself. You’re so clumsy. The one thing I could count on, besides you cheating on me, was the fact that you go fishing as much as you can.”
She had a little difficulty hefting the thirty-pound fish down to the kitchen table. Sue flopped the mackerel on the table carelessly then went to the drawer and retrieved a filleting knife and sharpening rod.
“Mom gave me the dipping sauce,” she said as she began honing the knife. “I dipped about a half a dozen hooks, or so, and just bided my time.” She approached the fish staring at the one flat fish-eye facing her. “It’s a good thing you taught me how to gut and filet fish. I’d hate to have any waste. I know how much that would have bothered you.”
Sue set the sharpening rod down, then gingerly scraped her thumb across the blade. Feeling that it was sharp enough she pressed the knife into the fish’s belly running it up to it’s gills exposing the delicate entrails. As she began ripping the guts free she had only two parting words. “Sorry, Charley.”