Wow!

I can’t believe that this is only my second entry in The Create Or Die Project!  Caroline, great work with your script yesterday, I look forward to more from your story!  As for me, today I also did some writing!  Granted, I waited until pretty much the last possible minute to write this, but I’m happy with how it turned out.  This is a short story/scene that I’ve written, which I’ve entitled “The Fishing Line”.  My goal was to find a way to combine character and setting in an interesting way.  Please enjoy, and thanks to all of you guys reading and watching!

Here we go:

The Fishing Line

by Chris Brousseau

“How much longer will we stay out here?”

I tried to catch myself, but it was too late.  I was whining, although I really didn’t mean to.  I had intended to sound sincere, but, instead, I was complaining.

My father didn’t immediately answer, but his large brown eyes flicked over towards me.  I felt a great pressure and my head fell forward, my eyes staring blankly at the wooden floor beneath my feet.

“Dean…”

I tensed my neck and slowly lifted my head, careful not to meet my father’s glance. Instead, I looked past him, beyond the edge of the boat and onto the glassy water below.

Up from the surface of the water, memories all came rushing back.  I was back in the boat again, as I had been hundreds of times before, with Dad perched up on the bow, fishing pole in hand.  I held my own, smaller fishing rod.  Just like before.  Once, it had a shining silver reel, but now the gears had rusted out and the spool was broken.  There was just enough line for it to cast out next to the boat.

From where I sat, I was nearly parallel with the smooth surface of the water, and my gaze skimmed out in all directions like a skipping stone, until finally it crashed against the blue hills at the horizon.  To someone who didn’t know better, they may have been miles away, or only a couple hundred feet. At this angle, it was impossible to tell.

I shifted my weight, holding the fishing rod loosely in my hand.  As I moved, the boat swayed, forcing ripples out in every direction, shattering the prior stillness of the water.  Dad acted like he was ignoring me and pretended to shift his focus back towards his line, but I was sure that he still watched me out of the corner of his eye.

“Careful, Dean,” he started. “No sudden movements—or you’ll fall in.”

“I’m still in the boat, okay?” I looked away, frowning, but already felt my face turning red and warm.

Now he turned to look at me, and I couldn’t keep from looking back.  My father had never been a very large man, but his deep brown eyes commanded respect.  As always, there was a permanent stubble secured around his chin, but now his thinning hair was whipping in every direction as a light breeze blew through the bay.  I noticed that he was a bit more wiry than he used to be, but he still balanced securely on the boat; his posture was more like a rock than anything else.

I slowly raised myself to my seat, trying to keep my feet secure as they slid across the wet boards.  As I tried to sit down, the boat lurched and I winced as I landed on my fingers.  I swallowed hard and looked at him with unease.

“Think you’ll catch anything soon?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he said, looking slightly out over the water.

I found myself leaning towards the land.

“Let’s start heading back when you get a bite?”  I had half-asked it as a question.  The other half, a decision.

His deep brown eyes gazed into mine.  They searched, and I felt lost in them.  It seemed like they had been searching and searching but had never quite found what they were looking for, leaving only a profound sadness.

“You used to love coming out here with me.”

I tried to find something to say.

“We came out here a lot,” was all I offered.

“We did.”

“We didn’t do much else.” I felt the words coming more easily now.

“And here we are, again.”

“Dad,” I started, but I felt my hands shaking.

He looked at me silently, and breathed a tiny, inaudible sigh that would have gone completely unnoticed if it wasn’t for his fixed gaze.  His wispy, silver hair fluttered in the breeze.

“I can’t stay.”

He nodded, his head softly bobbing. Yet, his eyes stayed fixed on the water below us.

“I can’t,” I repeated.  “This is your life, but it isn’t mine anymore.  I’ve moved on.”

Again, nothing but eyes fixed on the waves around the boat.  I looked down at my feet.

“Why do you still come out here?”

He paused for a moment, as if the question had struck him in the chest, leaving him anxious for air. Then, after another instant, he started, with a newfound clarity.

“There’s no other feeling. That the breeze on your face, the sun off the water—“

“Just like always,” I shrugged.

He turned and looked at me, now with a shimmer in his eye and mouth curved slightly upwards.

“That’s right… that’s right.”