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Fish Philosophy Assignment

 Apparitions and Late Fictions by Thomas Lynch

Here's a challenging assignment.

The following quotes are from a short story, Catch and Release, in Thomas Lynch's Apparitions & Late Fictions.

The protagonist, Danny, is a young man.

The thermos bottle with his father's ashes in it rested on the front seat of the drift boat.

The father had taught the boy to fish.

The son reminisces about a growth moment.

A moment that demarcates a before and an after in your life.

You're not the same person after the growth moment.

Danny is eight.

And he remembered the first fierce hit of the brown trout, how it rose in a fury and leapt and ran upstream, then downstream, taking line from a reel, and his father's kind counsel behind him, "That's it, that's it," and the beauty of it in the net and the mystery of it and the sense that he had of having been chosen by the fish because he had made the long trip in the dark, endured the cold, and the long walk through the swamp to stand in the right spot and cast to the right place, and listened to his father's instructions, and let the lure sink and work its way until it brought the eight-pound fish and the eight-year old boy together.

Danny is thirty.

He was thinking of that first brown trout. He remembered wanting to take it home to show his mother. His father said he could take it home and it would die and they would eat it or they could let it go. His father was working the lure out of its jaw. Danny was holding the handle of the net the fish was flopping in. He couldn't believe the options. Kill it, eat it, show his mother. Let it go. Never see it again. It was so beautiful. How could he let it go. How could he kill it. He remembered how it made him feel cold, for the first time, having to make such an awful choice.

Danny is a wilderness guide.

Among his clients it was well known now that Danny would put you on fish, teach you to catch fish, work hard to net them, and take your picture with them. And you could keep one male chinook or coho to take home to barbecue for the neighbors, with too much beer and blathermentia, but whatever plenty the season provided, whatever the limit the State of Michigan allowed, one salmon was the limit on Danny's boat and none was better and no browns or steelhead were ever kept.

Photograph such a moment in your life.

• I got a call at 2 A.M. . . .

• My parent, friend, teacher, doctor, or boss, said . . .

• I read . . .

• I was  . . . and saw . . .

How would Danny do the assignment?

Again, the above is from Apparitions & Late Fictions by Thomas Lynch.

It's great collection of stories.