The Parables

Humus - Precinct Eight

Humus - Precinct Eight

Placing my hands against the rear end of the rowboat, I push it across the gravelly sand and into the ice-cold water. Wading into the lake, I push the boat further out until it finally bobs on the surface of the water freely. I breathe a sigh of relief and scramble into it. My dungarees are slightly damp soaked, but that doesn't matter; they're waterproof, leaving my old clothes underneath dry. My boots, however, are a different matter: water has filled them to the brim, numbing my toes. I sit on the bench inside the rowboat and pull them off. Holding them over the side, I tip the water back into the lake. When they are both empty, I pull them back onto my feet. Satisfied, I pick up my rod and hang a piece of a bait onto its hook. Swivelling around in my seat, I grip the rod tightly and lower the bait into the lake.

Fishing is a good industry to work in. During work hours, workers catch the fish for The Commune. But in non-work hours, you have the opportunity to fish for yourself. Well, if you can smuggle a fish or two home for your family. The lake is monitored 24/7 by sentries: they stand around the perimeter of the lake, marching back and forth over their own piece of turf. If anyone is caught stealing or smuggling fish home, they're shot on the spot in front of everybody's eyes.

But there are odd times when you can get away with it. But to get away with it, you have to know the sentries. Along the perimeter of the lake, the sentries are positioned in pairs. Two young sentries, next to two older sentries and so on. Every day, each pair have moved onto a new piece of turf. Whenever there's a pair of younger sentries guarding the container of fish, that's when the thieves strike.

My best mate, Crane, and I have a particular sneaky method. We always get away with it - we'd be dead if we didn't - and we always have more than one fish to take home. Our families are poor, so they can't afford food for everybody in the family. So it's up to us to feed them. Even though we work six days a week, the weekly pay of a fisher is twice the amount a loaf of bread costs in the bakery; and two loaves of bread aren't going to feed a large family for a week.

A tug on the rod jolts me from my thoughts. Clasping tighter onto the rod, I slowly reel in the bite. There's a variety of fish in the lake. Twelve different rivers trickle into it, like the times on a clock. Each section divided by the rivers has a pair of sentries. Each river is numbered: a wooden post hammered into the ground next to the river displays the number. The river nearest me is number seven, but I can't make out which pair of sentries are next to it.

I reach the end of the reel and catch sight of a large grey fish, about half a metre long. Pink Salmon. I knew it straight away. Pink Salmon are very common to catch, mainly because Precinct Eight is nearest the Pacificus Ocean, where they tend to live. I swing the rod around, so the fish is dangling over the inside of the boat. I pull it off the hook with my hand covered with a rubber glove and check it's dead. The salmon's eyes are gorging out, blood seeping from a wound in its mouth. Not a pretty sight. I put the salmon in the bucket near to me and add a new piece of bait to the line. Throwing the line far into the water, I sit patiently waiting for a bite.

It's not long before a jerk on the line snaps me to my senses, and I retreat the line. A Pacific Herring emerges from the water, around forty centimetres long. It wriggles around on the end of the line, trying to break free. Eventually, it stops moving and hangs in a limp shape by the hook. I tear it off the hook and add it to my bucket. Two fish. I take another piece of bait and attach it to the hook on my rod.

The rod I use is technically mine to keep. When you enlist to the fishing industry, you're assigned a fishing rod and it stays your fishing rod forever, unless you need a replacement. Over the years of being a fisher, I've had two rods. My first one broke after I caught an Ocean Sunfish; the fish was so heavy, it tore the hook off the rod and the rod itself snapped in half. The Sunfish swam away before I could catch it, unfortunately.