To Catch a Fish
By ZLizabeth
Chapter Four
Disclaimer: There is one thing in this story that I don't own. I refer to it using only a pronoun. The quote is an old proverb.
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
There were days when he felt sixteen again. Days when he whimpered at awaking at some ungodly hour, the confines of his routine forcing his tired body into life. There were days when he moaned into the running water he splashed onto his face, mumbling softly to himself as he fell into he elevator and groped for his keys.
He kept his jeep in an overpriced lot two blocks from his apartment. One foot after another, he would stumble down the dormant streets, slapping at his face to wake himself up. From the booth where the small, fast speaking man who kept the lot was sleeping would be the glow of his latent cigarette. It would spark and burn while he pulled out, and when he returned it would be dead, a new trail of smoke foaming from the old man's mouth.
Options were nonexistent. He didn't have choices in going fishing. The dawn hours were his religion, the only part of his life he had any faith in. He coaxed the Jeep off the frozen parking lot with the prayers of someone at mass, stroking the breaks, while it rolled backwards towards the ocean. His breath appeared in clouds in the atmosphere like the incense of a church. A morning spent wrapped in one of his mother Egyptian cotton sheets would have a been a betrayal to his belief system.
Egyptian cotton was sacrilegious. Anything that reminded him of his father or mother made him sick. But he always was too tired to get new sheets. The sheets, some wine glasses, and a table were all that reminded him of his parents, save a large percent of the money in his bank account. He had lost his pride four years ago. The steady flow of checks given without the stain of disapproving looks from his family were not torn. They were smoothly passed from between his long fingers into the bank. It was those checks that he lived off. He didn't care for people who couldn't accept gifts.
His jeep embodied all the remnants of his morning rituals. The dashboard was littered with cracked coffee lids and the scent of bitter caffeine balanced the concentration of dried sea salt. His fishing tackle was piled clumsily in the back seat. A note reading "93.5" was taped to the knob on his radio, a pointless reminder for his perfectly functional memory. He was waiting for the day when he forgot what he had for breakfast that morning, forgot how old he was, and needed a reminder. He felt old enough to experience such a loss. It was a loss he wouldn't have minded.
His only other elixir was his obsession with chewing up and spitting out girls, and he considered this only a hobby. One of the few things the abrupt change in his lifestyle had failed to disable.
Random hairs could been seen when the sun, rising as he drove back, highlighted the seats. They were usually blindingly bright. One might mistake them for his own hairs, but the long ones were the reminders of his many blonde friends.
He had once known a girl who had told him, with her goodwill smile, that he could do something with his life. After all, he was rich, smart, and...
This was where he had readily supplied the "handsome".
He had thought he was in love with that girl. The first girl he had ever fallen in love with.
And one of the few he had failed to reel in. She had snagged his bait, he had thrown his back trying to land her, but she had fought. She was stronger than all the others, though her frame was frail and her features were delicate. He had her swimming next to him until she bit through the line, leaving him poorer a heart and a lure.
When he was fishing, he would dream. He would dream about love. He would dream about dreaming about some starstruck beauty in his ear, the wind whipping at her perfect hair. Floating above the water in his arms, her feet dipping into the ocean. He liked to dream that love like that was still possible.
An unreal sort of love. It had taken him twenty years to establish his only authentic love, the only love he could accept.
That love, of course, was the ocean. The reality of salt and water and fish. The ocean who played hard to get, who was as passionate, as furious, as unpredictable and three dimensional as any woman he had ever touched his mouth to. The ocean was as thrilling and as dangerous as the kind of love he had been hammered to believe in.
Love had never proven itself to fulfill him. The love, given or withheld, from the three woman who made his throat feel parched had been agonizing and torturous. Promises and lies interchangeable in his twisted devotions.
But he didn't expect the ocean to make promises.
******did you like? I'm sorry about the infrequent updates. Like my character (Disclaimer: who isn't mine) I'm very lazy, very tired...
By ZLizabeth
Chapter Four
Disclaimer: There is one thing in this story that I don't own. I refer to it using only a pronoun. The quote is an old proverb.
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
There were days when he felt sixteen again. Days when he whimpered at awaking at some ungodly hour, the confines of his routine forcing his tired body into life. There were days when he moaned into the running water he splashed onto his face, mumbling softly to himself as he fell into he elevator and groped for his keys.
He kept his jeep in an overpriced lot two blocks from his apartment. One foot after another, he would stumble down the dormant streets, slapping at his face to wake himself up. From the booth where the small, fast speaking man who kept the lot was sleeping would be the glow of his latent cigarette. It would spark and burn while he pulled out, and when he returned it would be dead, a new trail of smoke foaming from the old man's mouth.
Options were nonexistent. He didn't have choices in going fishing. The dawn hours were his religion, the only part of his life he had any faith in. He coaxed the Jeep off the frozen parking lot with the prayers of someone at mass, stroking the breaks, while it rolled backwards towards the ocean. His breath appeared in clouds in the atmosphere like the incense of a church. A morning spent wrapped in one of his mother Egyptian cotton sheets would have a been a betrayal to his belief system.
Egyptian cotton was sacrilegious. Anything that reminded him of his father or mother made him sick. But he always was too tired to get new sheets. The sheets, some wine glasses, and a table were all that reminded him of his parents, save a large percent of the money in his bank account. He had lost his pride four years ago. The steady flow of checks given without the stain of disapproving looks from his family were not torn. They were smoothly passed from between his long fingers into the bank. It was those checks that he lived off. He didn't care for people who couldn't accept gifts.
His jeep embodied all the remnants of his morning rituals. The dashboard was littered with cracked coffee lids and the scent of bitter caffeine balanced the concentration of dried sea salt. His fishing tackle was piled clumsily in the back seat. A note reading "93.5" was taped to the knob on his radio, a pointless reminder for his perfectly functional memory. He was waiting for the day when he forgot what he had for breakfast that morning, forgot how old he was, and needed a reminder. He felt old enough to experience such a loss. It was a loss he wouldn't have minded.
His only other elixir was his obsession with chewing up and spitting out girls, and he considered this only a hobby. One of the few things the abrupt change in his lifestyle had failed to disable.
Random hairs could been seen when the sun, rising as he drove back, highlighted the seats. They were usually blindingly bright. One might mistake them for his own hairs, but the long ones were the reminders of his many blonde friends.
He had once known a girl who had told him, with her goodwill smile, that he could do something with his life. After all, he was rich, smart, and...
This was where he had readily supplied the "handsome".
He had thought he was in love with that girl. The first girl he had ever fallen in love with.
And one of the few he had failed to reel in. She had snagged his bait, he had thrown his back trying to land her, but she had fought. She was stronger than all the others, though her frame was frail and her features were delicate. He had her swimming next to him until she bit through the line, leaving him poorer a heart and a lure.
When he was fishing, he would dream. He would dream about love. He would dream about dreaming about some starstruck beauty in his ear, the wind whipping at her perfect hair. Floating above the water in his arms, her feet dipping into the ocean. He liked to dream that love like that was still possible.
An unreal sort of love. It had taken him twenty years to establish his only authentic love, the only love he could accept.
That love, of course, was the ocean. The reality of salt and water and fish. The ocean who played hard to get, who was as passionate, as furious, as unpredictable and three dimensional as any woman he had ever touched his mouth to. The ocean was as thrilling and as dangerous as the kind of love he had been hammered to believe in.
Love had never proven itself to fulfill him. The love, given or withheld, from the three woman who made his throat feel parched had been agonizing and torturous. Promises and lies interchangeable in his twisted devotions.
But he didn't expect the ocean to make promises.
******did you like? I'm sorry about the infrequent updates. Like my character (Disclaimer: who isn't mine) I'm very lazy, very tired...