The man looked out the window as the once foreign landscape reeled away below; he looked down on the browns and greens of India as a scientist might examine an amoeba through a microscope. Mere professional interest held his mind's eye, like looking upon something once a source of intense curiosity, harkening to a world full of countless wonders that might capture the imagination of a twelve year old boy. Now? - all those wonders explored long ago, consigned to memory, the fleeting halo of youth gone – replaced by knowledge and experience, and what was it he felt? Boredom? Anomie? Professional detachment?
He was a diplomat - working in the service of his government – from Denmark, and had been posted to his country's mission in India in the late 90s. His wife had joined him then, those many years ago, and despite years of complaining and recriminations they had endured the heat and the dismal politics and the near wars with Pakistan in a state which might have been confused once upon a time as something approaching that state of grace we like to call normalcy. She hated India, hated her husband's dead-end career in the Diplomatic Corp, hated the grinding poverty that confronted her every move outside their home in the compound, and the endless dissemination that went with the job of chief domestic servant. She had only recently returned home to attend her mother's funeral, and there had met an old friend from happier days and pronounced to one and all that she was through with India, through with her husband, and she requested he ship her belongings home soonest, thank you very much.
So the man returned home to kill the remnants of the illusions that graced his waking moments like a cobra's strike; when once the lawyers were done with him and his long empty life stretched behind him like a melted Dali landscape he moved away from the tattered bits of his soul as if they were a leper's outstretched hand, and he wandered through the Tivoli and along the razor's edge of his despair thinking what he might do with the time left him, and all he could think of doing was to go fishing.
He had long heard that the submontane waters of the Himalaya were just dandy for all manner of exotic fish, and as long as one avoided the odd tiger or leopard one could have as exotic an experience as one could hope to find in this our brave new world. Why not? the man said to himself. Why the fuck not?
And so now the man sat silently, looking out the window by seat 3A as the airliner began it's descent into the nightmare of his unraveling while the somewhat too cheerful flight attendant walked by again and she smiled at him again and he smiled at her again and wondered what she tasted like down there again before he turned back to the teeming emptiness that drifted by below like a silent admonition. He didn't feel sorry for himself, he kept saying to himself, because he was already dead. Nobody knew it yet, but it was true. He felt oddly amused at this and laughed at his reflection in the plastic window.
He was aware of a lurching twisting sensation, then of falling. Then the world grew dark.
The man whipped the rod back and forth in majestic arcs; once released the dry fly slipped through the air and settled on the steel gray waters of the mountain stream. He watched the yellows and reds of the fly as it drifted across silvered-cobalt ripples, and then he looked up again at the python lying at the water's edge across the river. The snake regarded him coolly, as if the presence of a man should be a matter of concern for one so adept at taking life. What could a man do, after all?
The water rippled and the man tensed, waiting for that perfect moment to set the hook, and when he felt the fly tremble through the arc of line connecting his hand to the world beneath the sun dappled shimmering water, he flicked his wrist and set the hook. The fish exploded through the surface and ran across the river toward rock-strewn rapids, and the man was conscious of the python watching the fish as well - when he heard a voice calling his name, and he turned to see the guide that had been engaged walking his way. The image of the guide was milky white, and it too shimmered as if made from star-stuff. The sight made the man uneasy, yet all he could do was laugh as the fish skipped across the water on the other end of his line.
The guide approached and told the man that a large tiger had been seen in the area, and it was no longer safe to fish along the river. The man smiled, nodded his head to indicate understanding, and turned his attention back to the water. His line lay limp across the dazzling water, the fly on the end of the line lay like a dead thing on the ever-shifting kaleidoscope, and he wondered for a moment what had happened to the fish.
He looked across to the far shore and saw that the snake was gone, and he laughed so hard that he began to feel like the clown he knew in his heart he always had been. He reeled in his line and walked with the guide back to the bungalow tucked away deep in the forest. He laughed all the way.
It was all so absurd.
Some time later he was standing on the banks of the river, and with his rod in hand he walked along to well worn path by the water's edge until he found a spot clear of trees where he could cast his line again. He was conscious of looking in the grass for the python, and though he took his time he felt preoccupied with catching the fish that had gotten away – was it yesterday? The man stopped, suddenly taken by the idea that he couldn't remember what day it was, or when he had last come to the river, and he became aware that time no longer held any meaning to him. The idea was faintly unsettling, so he laughed.
The man looked at the clearing and decided to try his luck here for a while, so he set his creel and net down on a nearby rock and moved to the water's edge. He bent over and looked down at the water and was amazed to see his reflection there on the calm surface. He looked at himself for a moment and he was calmed by the idea that this was how he had looked for so many millions of years, and he found this realization not at all odd, and though it was daylight he took comfort in the familiar patterns of stars and planets reflected on the waters surface. He looked up at the crystalline sky and at the billions of stars in their stately array and he reached up as if to touch them, then thought better of the idea and began to cast his line onto the still water.
He saw the fish before his fly hit the water; he watched knowing what was about to happen and wondered why it must be so, then the fish broke free of the water and flew through the air before taking the lure. The fish looked at him and smiled before crashing back into the water, then the man felt his line take the energy of the fish and the river exploded. The fish broke through into the starlight again and again as it danced across the water; the water danced in the rhythm of the struggle and the man played out line to give the fish room to run.
