Feed Him For a Lifetime

Just a speck. That’s all the boat was as it ebbed and flowed with the gigantic ocean, yet the young man in the boat did not care about that. His belly was empty, his face was burnt; days had gone by without a decent catch. He spat in contempt.

His bitter tug on the pole revealed only the weightlessness of bait and hook rising to the surface. Again he spat in contempt.

A tug at the other end bent the top of the young man’s pole.

The pole jerked!

The young man’s heart raised tempo. All was not lost after all. He grasped the pole with the spool whirling. Furiously he reeled in and did battle, forcing the spool to swallow yard after yard of line.

In his mind he ridiculed the inferior creature for not being stronger.

Eventually, just beneath the sapphire pane of water near the front of his boat, a shimmering fish, looking like some strange, oblong underwater mirror, wrenched against the hook and line. Was it bonito? Perhaps yellow-fin? Whatever it was, it would surely make a grand meal. Closer and closer, the young man hauled the master of the sea to the boat. Peering down his nose, he smirked, his chest swelled with pomposity, for here was the fish, so easily conquered.

He reached for his gaff, preparing to hook his foe. He had the tuna’s head at the surface when the fish gave a final heave and snapped the line. In dismay, the young man gaped at the place where he was once so sure his next meal was to come. His gut, empty as the end of his fishing line, rumbled.