Steam was coming off of the pond,
as I pushed the boat out into the water,
and hopped in with my coffee and my pole.
I paddled the boat along the bank,
as the sun started to emerge above the alfalfa field.
I cast out my line
into the perfectly still pond.
It ‘plopped’,
as it hit the water,
and the ripples started.
I watched them,
fascinated at the small floating circles
that were spreading across the water,
and coming closer towards me.
It was almost a psychedelic experience.
I imagined time and space,
and all of existence,
as the still water.
And I thought that each one of us
of having the capability
to throw a line out into the middle of it,
and cause an effect
that rippled out into everything...
After watching the ripples for awhile,
and contemplating 'the ripple effect' on all of time and space and everything,
I saw one of the smallest hummingbirds I had ever seen.
She was zipping around the blackberry bushes.
My eyes moved from the ripples,
to the little bird.
As I watched her dart back and forth,
I thought,
‘They are just bigger bee’s.’
I tried to see if I could see her wings,
but no matter how hard I squinted,
they were just a blur.
Her long beak violated flower after flower.
I related to her that way,
and I related to the bee’s too:
driving our cars to make honey,
so we can pay our bills,
in our little hives we call cities,
to keep the wheel turning.
I thought,
' We are just bigger bee’s too.’
I let my line fly through the steam again,
and hit the water.
The 'plop' echoed across the pond.
I was using an imitation frog lure,
and I could see the green rubber frog,
skidding across all of time and space and existence.
I reeled it in,
hoping a fish would see it and chase it.
I remembered listening to a little antidote about fish and water that David Foster Wallace told once.
Fish only know reality inside of their water environments,
so they wouldn’t know what water was–
at that moment
a fish hit the frog,
and I yanked my pole to hook the fucker.
I reeled in and felt the fight.
There is nothing like those few minutes of trying to get it into the boat;
Melville was onto something there.
And then once I got my white whale into my little fishing boat,
I basked in my accomplishment.
Then I took a photo that made the fish look much bigger than it actually was-
the modern fisherman’s tradition.
As I took the hook out of the little guy’s mouth,
and threw him back into the water.
I put myself in the gills of the fish,
and thought about what it would be like
to be plucked out of my reality
by some giant unknown being,
who takes my picture
as I hang upside down
from the hooks in my mouth.
Then having the hooks removed
and tossed back into my reality
by this insane thing
that I never knew existed before.
I’d try to tell my story to my fellow fish,
but all they know is water,
and they’d never be able to understand
my above water experience…
I decided,
in that moment,
that alien abductions stories
are not that crazy.
-C.H.