Worshipful Sea

At sunset Pablo turns the rowboat, swinging wide in a sweeping arch to head back for land; he is a middle-aged man with no surviving family, and the necessity of fishing since barely older than a boy.

Both of his parents were well-sought shamanic healers in the rainforest, until deforestation led them move inland, eventually rooting by the coast. After relocation paternal burden became to turn to the sea to make a living, maternal to sell by roadside what little produce grew in their erosive garden. During earlier times, his parents had fought in continuing their holistic practice, yet the urban community seemed to have had little need or else means to tend matters of spirituality. For their part, they were able to live with meaning of the ancestral wisdoms they had brought within their souls. But in Pablo’s case, the demand of the new life he grew up in let for but brevity to learn through them, and the little they managed to instill mostly lost on him now, long after their passing, many years ago.

Tide washes with firm ease against the boat’s hull as it comes about, undulated ripples sliced in the water collapsing back on themselves like dirt filling in a grave. There is froth on the surface and upon horizon, red disc of a blood sun retreating into the ocean, refracting beams of ichor.

Nowadays, you had to go substantially past shore to find abundant schools of fish. Older locals occasionally told urban legends about the shoals having been so much closer, replete that you could go and earn a week’s take in under a day’s work.

For Pablo, this modern condition of farther casting was even more arduous owing that some rotors of his motorized vessel were damaged, navigation nearly spent and the deck beginning to take on water, pragmatically he elected instead to use a rowboat and wooden oars which he would normally rent to tourists and neighbourhood children for pleasure. He is unsure if ever he will be able to afford repairs, yet even so, working hard enough at long hours could still neatly earn more himself than if he went to labour for a troller heading out into deeper waters.

Before starting towards shore he drops the serrated hook of a long rod to the depths below, as per usual, perpetually allowing it to run during his way back in-case something should be caught. This rod is held in place with wads of duct tape and sealing adhesive, at the base of the bow, a smaller rod is tucked away underneath the boards of the boat, along with his kit, an angling net holding modest tuna catch, a bailing bucket and parchment-wrapped sandwich. He flattens the oars over the water, pulls for a few strokes, and then straightens out the blades so they skim the surface, choppily gliding across the grey-blue daybreak current proper.

Trying to get comfortable as possible, Pablo places both feet against the middle sitting board, reclines against the stern, and settles into a well-deserved late lunch.

In these moments, he thinks of the captain he used to work for in his youth, when father became too weak from illness. He had loved that old man like an uncle and missed him almost much as his parents. The hardy captain had been a sufferer of doubter’s disease and insomnia, this served to endear him to Pablo truly even more so. Quite often he had had to go out alone, for this Pablo felt rather sorry. Pablo’s youth, though, had been fraught with hyperactivity; school, mass, parental lessons, time among peers, assisting mother with homemaking, caring for father and later caretaking for mother.

Church had been a prerogative of his own, until the commanding life of a fisherman necessitated him to choose between sea and cloth. His parents did not believe in any purposefulness pertaining religion, and this he’d known although they respected his choice, never ridiculing him for it. Given that he even comprehended its shallower aspects, it nonetheless remained all too simple to get swept up in the activities of friends and the community you grew up in.

Besides, Pablo loved the mythology of it all too well; he had always favoured stories of Saint Ago. Agostini was a catholic fisherman who purportedly had the knowledge and prowess in days of old to feed the mouths of an entire port town regularly. In dehydration, Pablo had had visions of the ocean master before.

And so, this fueled Pablo’s ambition for a sporting profession, what he dreamt of in younger days: being proficient enough with occupation to ably take care of an entire population. Now he knew that this was probably impossible, or at least the tales of Saint Ago were greatly exaggerated by the faith. Still, it remained that Pablo always strove to steer the most honest and steadfast boat of the village.

Halfway through eating his sardine-salad sandwich, a solitary fin disturbs the surface. Some fathoms away from the boat, it peaks gently above the flat water, sails a moment then disappears. It is nothing overtly startling, save for an immediate peripheral palpitation which happens always, without fail. Sea creatures might look fearsome, but what a seafarer really fears is volatile weather patterns and deadly storms, not sharks. Nautical monsters existed only as media concepts, believed Pablo.

‘Only naval sailors and false mariners fear you, not Pablo,’ he says faced toward the point in the water where the shark had appeared. ‘Go away.’

In a short bit he notices the stripes of the tiger’s elongated body, as closer it slides, then dives. Briefly afterward the tiger shark breaches once more, in a crescent at not two fathoms, prior plunging. For the next while, it haunts the dark waters below as if it were a marine ghost, vexing poor Pablo.

‘You’re naught but a big fishy,’ he shouts, now mildly on alert, flicking at the water with his fingers. ‘Shoo, sharky, leave Pablo and ol’ Chum Bucket alone. She’s been dealt enough already.’

A moment after losing sight the fishing line suddenly tugs, and vessel begins pulling steadily. Pablo braces with both hands beneath the board, legs suspended in air, as then it thrusts diagonally north, almost sending him barrel-rolling off starboard. For several minutes his shark yanks her in abrupt, uneven turns, and then sailing in perfect death circles port-port-port-port-port.

Pablo realizes right then that to try and salvage the deep-sea rod would be futile. The blade of his pocketknife is dull, rusty and the tape binding rod to bow wider than a galver, so knows he must disconnect the pole as to get rid of it. Standing up, stepping into the middle the beast jaggedly pulls and almost takes the legs out from under him. Going overboard not something he cares peril, thus the fisher moves aside his gear, finishes sandwich and lays flat under the boards, nesting like a vampire in its coffin.

The mighty tiger ceases circling and plunges, flying underneath the boat in the opposite direction. The fishing line swings about taut and then the boat jerks fast around, pulling away hard. This massive beast could capsize the vessel if it felt the urge, and so Pablo stays put.

After not such a long time there is no more movement, force. A last light gleans feebly at sea-level, fell blackness of the swallowed firmament pressing down unto Earth. Pablo tries to imagine a happy place, realizing no other place would he rather be than the sea. His love for the ocean was even greater than that of the trees and forest of his homeland. He allows the soft waves to rock him into a calmness that is felt in the soul, even with heartbeat thumping and blood pounding in the ears.

‘Know any good ditties? Perhaps there are seamen in your belly you could ask.’ Tiger does not reply, although the ocean purred back sweetly. ‘No, that’s okay. Poseidon, please do not let this be salty end to saline career. Aquaman, lend me your strength. Not orange-green version.’

As time passes, every so often the shark persists with an attempt to get free, though only with subdued effort and a quieter determination which Pablo felt aligned with.

Laying quite still he reflects on the space in mind where the teachings that his parents had bestowed were, at once stored, now lost, which often felt to be a piece of himself missing. As if early on life had been a portrait and then shattered into a mosaic with parts that no longer fit into place. Indeed, he always knew that inner wisdom was more precious than any cargo shipped across the vast Seven Seas, or sentimental heirlooms which they had transported from the jungle. Sometimes, when he reflected on everything that he did not now understand, which his parents had, he felt guilty. Yet one sacred thing he held deeply within, in the very moment, that the nervous system becomes disoriented and mind skewed when it gets lost on survival, so you must unwaveringly seek grace under pressure.

Pablo sits up crisscross-applesauce, peering blindly into the darkness, where swirling waves rock the boat like a cradle. ‘I prefer not to die,’ he says, and lay back, into silence.

When Pablo wakes from a light sleep, the water is silent. He remembers his mind having drifted and knows it could not have been for too long. Dimly glow a few lights from the shore, including some makeshift beacons perennially-nocturnally lit on the beach. Currents had taken him farther towards inland, and with this gusto he decides to feel way over to the deep-sea rod. With both hands he works the wire slowly, then tries to reel it in. Its line was now slack, the great beast having managed unhook itself and fled into the deep.

The tide is spitting and wind soothing, coolly refreshing, as Pablo starts the row back at a paddle. He goes with, inside, peace of mind and stillness in heart, the sea a mother he will always have. After about an hour, when arrived he tucks his rustic wooden vessel into a meagre slip, then unloads the equipment.

Memories of Pablo’s oldest friend, the captain come into focus as he ties off the ropes in the long-retired fisherman’s personalized knots. He was a stout, solid fellow lesser in old age than he’d been per skill and innovativeness, yet retained stellar capability. Pablo sees the hair brimming out the chest of his linen shirt, the platinum streaks throughout windswept, grey mane and admirable facial hair. The old man had taught him so much, nurturing Pablo to develop a genuine, affectionate appreciation for the lifestyle. He had been much changed, in later times; via hushed tones and whispers the crewmembers of liners lightly referred to this as neurasthenia. In latest days, he was not only stoic but withdrawn, and Pablo thought he’d lost his stomach for it. Then one day, as the old man went away, he never came back.

Walking away from the docks Pablo comes face with the foot of the beach, beginning across the sands. In the dark, scarce shine he sees many silhouettes, the big troll nets dismantled on the ground, tangled still with rot bycatch the fishermen were too careless and tired to release. Past the wet shoreline and bungles of dirty seafoam are the litter and discarded bony carcasses. Also severed fish heads bestrew the beach, near drying and curing stations where fishers fillet and on racks hang catch.

Sleep would not come this night; it would be nonsense to waste the early-bird hours till dawn. Pablo had noted whilst returning that the boat took on water due to the tiger shark’s thrashing. Additionally, cork plugs that filled narrow holes slightly beneath the rubber blunting rim had popped loose. All the aging fisherman could do would be to chuck the water, patch the holes and decide if she, or Tin Can, were seaworthy-enough come the morning.

The End