Jack and George

Jack and George were going fishing.
Jack, being the older brother, lead the way.
George, wanting not to be a burden and to prove he was big and strong, took longer strides than normal to keep up.
They each had a fishing rod slung over their left shoulder and a tacklebox hanging in their right hand.
They walked a narrow but well-trod path through a pine plantation.
They were headed to a little backwater in the big river.
Some days you could catch bass, but more often bluegills were biting.
And bluegills were fun to catch because they fought real hard for how small they were.

“I hope there’s not a lot of bugs,” said George.

“Probably won’t be,” Jack said.
” There’s a good breeze going, and mosquitos
don’t like flying in the wind.”

They kicked the last few orange pineneedle clusters away from their path to come upon a steep hill.
A descent of spiraling brambles waited. Nearly to the river.
“You want me to grab your stuff?” asked Jack.
“No, I can do it,” George said.

And they crouched and slid down the hill, finding worn rocks and surface-peeking roots as their footfalls.
Spirals of thorny and angry red plants caught their shirts and shoes,
but they made the greasy descent.
They had to stop sometimes to un-catch their fishing line from a branch.
But they made it to the river bank.

Jack took a second to revere it.
The river murmuring, reflecting the sky, dragonflies skimming the surface.
He didn’t have and would never gain the language for it, but he held this as a holy moment.
George looked to Jack briefly, then crouched down. He opened his tacklebox and considered what lure to use.
He wanted to use the one that looked like a frog. A big fake frog, because he had heard that’s what muskies bite.
But he knew his brother would ridicule him for it, so he settled on a worm-looking thing.

With a “Zzzziiiinnnngg!”, Jack threw his lure into the river. He cast it sidearm, so as to avoid the trees.
It plopped into the water. He ratcheted it back toward the shore slowly.
George flipped his fake worm into the water, underhanded. He plopped it closer to the shore so as to not cross lines.

“No bugs so far,” said Jack.

“Yeah,”

So time went. The brothers cast into the river. Nothing was biting. The good breeze had a touch of Autumn rolling over the water. Summer was nearly over.

George cast his line into a shallow part of the bank. He tried to reel it in but the reel had no response. It was stuck. He cranked the lever but it just spun for nothing. Fuck. He tried to move the rod into different angles, reeling at differnet speeds, trying to free himself, but it was not happening. “Jack,” he said “I’m stuck,”

“Alright, no problem,” said Jack. “Gimme your pole. Just walk out there and unhook it. It’s right by the shore.”

George ambled along the shore, following his line. He traced it down into the water, and pulled it up.

He drew the string up with great effort and a putrid dead man rose to break the water’s surface. His hook was stuck into the empty eye socket of a rotting human corpse. George shrieked a mortal shriek, kicking his body away from it. His fishing lure was caught in the rotted skullhole of a corpse.

The corpse sat there, putrid, lapping aginst the rivershore. Fish hook and all. George panted, Jack tried. What words can be said?

The green grey zombie sat beside the river. Jack said to his brother “Don’t think that has anything to do with you,” If it wasn’t you, it would have been somebody else. No reason to feel bad about it,” The summer gave way, low in the desperate people’s vocabulary. Almost funny lowness.

They kicked more dead pine needles on their path home. “I’m going to see this when I’m trying to sleep,”

“I’m sorry. I know you’ll see it.”

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