The Fisherman

Many years ago

here was an old fisherman who lived happily.

He was alone, but by choice.

His mother was a fisherwoman, and her father was a fisherman, and so on

going back nineteen generations.

And for nineteen generations

they passed down the knowledge of the fish, the sky, and the sea

too to our fisherman

the subject of our tried and true tale.

 

He fished at all times

for himself

for his family

and for his gods

for the sea

the true ruler of this world.

He wished not

to harm any life that he needn't to

for respect is the first rule of the angler.

 

But it is said by the people of his land

that every twenty generations

someone will come along who is greater than the rest;

there will be

a child who has

a dream.

And our hero dreamed of being the best angler in the world

 

So on the twentieth day

of the twentieth month

of his twentieth year

he begins to pray to the gods.

For ten days and ten nights

he reserves the best fish he catches

and eats only the table scraps

so that he may burn them in offering to the gods.

 

Full of hope, he hurls the fish into his ritual fire

and collapses to his knees

shouting his pleas to the gods of the sea.

 

The next day

 

sets his sails

and spends the entire day

with his line in the water

but alas

he cries out in astonishment

when he reels the first

and only

catch of the day: the smallest of minnows.

 

Shocked yet determined

the old man returns home

and sends his family to live with his parents

he spends an entire week

dismantling his shack