Trout Interlude

He is just a boy, timid and skinny; an uncertain acolyte of a godlike landscape.
Fearful of his father but still under his wings; he fishes alone as far away as he dares.
Sky painting, lake slap-lapping on rocks, sun sparkling off the surface like a hundred
thousand flashbulbs in a stadium, he dispiritedly casts into the water over and over.

Thinking he’ll never catch a fish when his pole tugs and bounces alive in his hands.
Tense vibrations of dipping rod and singing line mingle with garbled shouts of glee.  
Adrenaline surges through fire hose veins, as the twisting and jerking fury of the pole
courses through arms, shoulders, neck, and out the top of his head in a corona of electric current.  

Hungry childhood senses open wide like the jaws of a whale, to swallow whole the moment.
Frantically twirling invisible line, churning and churning the clicking little circles of the reel;  
The universe shrinks to the size of the lake with the utter hugeness of this bite, this power
that surely must come from the Queen Trout herself: the manifestation of all troutness!  

Suddenly she pierces the surface, a brilliant flashing nebula of green and gold.
Silver water glinting off her muscled back framed against the sapphire blue of the lake;  
Supernaturally poised in time and space, mouth and gills pumping to expel the agonizing
piercing in her throat, she slowly keels over in the air like the hull of a jeweled submarine,

Suspended in atmosphere, spraying diamond droplets shining in the amber sunlight,
Crashing back to surface with a resounding splash careening off blue-green granite walls.  
He reels and reels the twisting treasure with epileptic frenzy, until she shoots past him
onto the mossy shore, and flops and bounces spastically like – well, like a fish out of water!

 Don’t let her get away!

He dives heedlessly on top of muck and rocks and cold, wriggling, muscular fish.
She gulps and maws with gaping mouth and bulging eyes; frenzied in mute, agonized screams.
Covering, suffocating with arms tight to his sides, face pressed firmly to the moist moss and
mud, he feels the dying throes of the trout against his breast as the beating of another heart.  

Balloons of time drift past, slow and silent, popped by the angry squawking of a blue jay.
Breathless, ears ringing with exhilaration, heart pound-pounding and surging in eardrums;  
As arms begin to ache the twitching and jerking underneath him ceases, and he peels his
upper body slowly, carefully off the ground like a Polaroid, to get a peek at his precious prize.

Victory! The biggest fish in all of history! Icy, dull eyes clouding over in final defeat.
A marvelous kaleidoscope of color matted unceremoniously with moss, mud, and pine needles.
Trembling hands lift with a focus of concentration never felt before; legs transport his wet,
dripping, muddy body unbidden over the few sloppy yards back to the sighing lakeshore.  

There, in a shallow pool sanctuary, he gently lays his treasure on an underwater funerary.
Debris melts off her body like a silken veil as he ties the slack line again and again to a stick.
The incredible colors dance before his eyes and dissolve into the liquid; a rising and spreading
rainbow oil slick swaying lifelessly with the ancient rhythm of the waves calling her homeward.  

He guzzles and gasps on the utter fullness of the moment until his eyes stream and ears ring.
A vital clarity of supercharged mind records every distinct detail of the experience in an instant.
The waves, colors, sounds, clammy wetness, and the sweet fishy smell of slime all manifest
in a primal, fractal alchemy on this alpine lake, this joyful human, and this dead trout.

But oh!  He is alive!