The Fisherman

Camryn Costello

He’d been there as long as I could remember. I saw him every day on my way to the campus. He sat there on the rocks, grizzled features aimed out across the water, pole resting against his boot as the bobber floated along with the incoming waves. I’d never seen the man catch anything in the short time it took me to walk past him. He usually just sat and waited and watched.

The waves were choppier today. The weather forecast predicted a storm, and the thunderhead gathering to the east indicated they were right. It didn’t look like my walk back from class was going to be a fun one if that storm continued along its course. The wind rushing up and over the line of rocks that made up the shore tousled my hair and brushed over me with its salty scent.

As I neared, I realized the man wasn’t looking out to the sea. His gaze, too, was turned to the sky, to the east. The line was cast out into the water as always, but the bright red figure of the bobber was nowhere in sight; it must have somehow been pulled below. 

“Expecting to catch anything before the storm hits?” I asked, stopping nearby. I’d never spoken to him before, but it didn’t seem to deter him from answering. Maybe he’d noticed me walking by regularly. The fisherman didn’t look at me until he started to speak, and I saw for the first time that his eyes were startlingly blue, vibrant and piercing between his salt and pepper locks of hair and the dark jacket that shrouded his shoulders.

“I’m counting on it.” His voice sounded as if he’d wandered the desert for days without water. “Weather’s too good not to.”

I glanced up at the quickly darkening sky.

“Well, best of luck—”

We noticed the line moving at the same time. Gradually, it was pulled taut until the pole began to shift toward the water. I expected him to snatch it, but instead he reached down carefully, lifting it as slowly as possible to his hip to reel in his catch.

The man watched every movement with a focus that couldn’t have been broken by me or God or anyone. The process was slow. He scanned the water, reeled the line a little, and stopped. He tapped the pole rhythmically during each pause, and I couldn’t tell if it was for a reason or just an anxious reaction to the oddly tense situation.

I glanced at my watch. The screen lit up as I tilted it toward my face, showing that I had fifteen minutes to get to class. I didn’t want to come off as rude by leaving so suddenly, but I wasn’t paying thousands of dollars just to skip class.

I looked back at the man and the line in the water, and as I opened my mouth to finish my well wishes, my breath caught in my throat. A fin broke the surface. A giant fin with jagged edges and an odd sort of length to it that vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. I stared across the choppy gray water, wide-eyed and hoping for another glimpse of the massive fish.

The fisherman was the picture of concentration. Sighting the fish hadn’t changed anything. His expression only showed focus, the blue eyes peering intently down the line as he continued his slow retrieval.

The fin showed itself again, close enough this time that I could see little spots adorning it. It looked like a dorsal fin unlike any I’d ever seen. I was by no means a fisherman, but even I could tell just by the size of the fin it was a monstrous fish. The man continued to reel it in, and it continued to get bigger as the distance between us and it lessened.

I was frozen by the time it was fifty feet away from us. It was easily the size of two full grown men, if not more. Jaws snapped angrily through the whitecaps that were washing around it, and massive teeth cut through the water. It must have been a shark. The man must have somehow caught a shark. There was no other explanation for the dark shape I was looking at.

But it wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t a shark. The jaws were too long, the mouth too wide and too misshapen to be any shark I’d ever heard of, and with more teeth than I’d even seen on a living creature. And the eyes. They practically glowed as it thrashed in the water. Goosebumps formed all along my skin and a chill ran down my back. Panic began to well in my chest as the man reeled that…thing even closer.

There was a snap and then it vanished into the gray depths.

I looked over, suddenly breathing again, to see the man folding a sizable pocket knife as the fishing line curled loosely back on itself. He seemed to sense me watching. I was sure he could hear my panicked gasps, see the alarm on my face.

“Too small,” he said, then began repairing the line.

I stared at him. The chills and the goosebumps were gone. The only lingering sensation was the panic, and that was fading now, too. I wanted to ask the man what it was, what sort of monster I’d just seen, or if I’d even really seen anything at all.

All I could manage was, “What do you mean?”

He didn’t look up as he threaded the wire through the eyelets. “He won’t accept one that small.”

“He?”

The man nodded. “I need a bigger one if I’m to continue being his witness.”

I stood in bewildered silence. The man reached into the tackle box on the ground and retrieved another lure, one unlike any I’d ever seen. It was oblong and looked handmade, with small, intricate symbols carved around it. I didn’t recognize any of them. He attached it to the line, and as he cast it back into the waves, the wind gusted around us. It was strong enough to knock me off balance and push me back onto the rocks. I didn’t get back up.

“You sure you wanna stick around, kid?”

I nodded, despite myself. I couldn’t have said no if I’d tried. I don’t know why I didn’t.

The storm was getting closer. A quick glance at my watch told me that I was well and truly late for class now. I could make it to the last half if I sprinted, but with the pole once again resting at the man’s boot, I couldn’t pull myself away from what I’d just witnessed. Or what I could witness again. The thought of seeing another one of those creatures terrified me, but I just couldn’t get my feet beneath me. I didn’t even try. I wanted to be astonished by that, but…I wasn’t. 

By the time the bobber dipped beneath the water again, the sky was completely covered with storm clouds. The wind tugged at my clothing and the larger waves sprayed us when they broke on the shore. I got colder with every splash, but my concern fell away when the man began to reel again.

It was the same process. Scan, reel, pause. Tap tap tap. I was on my feet the moment I saw another fin with that same odd shape and dotted with those same little spots.

The man pulled the creature closer, and my heart jumped to my throat when I realized that this one was even bigger. It thrashed violently, but the man, who was murmuring quietly to himself now, didn’t seem fazed by it, as if the size of the creature he had snared made no more difference than a sardine.

The fear started to fill my chest again, spreading through my limbs and burning like wildfire despite the frigid weather, or maybe because of it. I wanted to run. Run as far as I could from this thing, with its wrong, wide jaws, and countless teeth and glowing eyes—

The eyes. The yellow-green glow spread up its back in spots as it was pulled nearly to the shore. It roared, jaws snapping, and I could see it. I could see the eyes cracking open along the length of its body, unblinking as the yellow-green light spilled out from inside.

The man turned to me, blue eyes wide and wild.

“He’ll accept this one.”

The man dragged the creature onto the rocks, still muttering as he did. It thrashed against the shore as it laid on its side, beating itself mercilessly against the ground, roaring and glowing and splashing in the waves that washed toward us.

It was raining now. The thunder that had been in the distance was on top of us. The sea lashed at us. The eyes continued glowing. They were bright against the deep gray surroundings and burned spots in my vision.

The man was speaking loudly now, over the howling rain. My eyes didn’t move from the creature, but I could hear him, just barely. The words themselves were inaudible, but he was repeating himself, over and over as he cast his fishing pole to the side and approached the monstrosity.

I couldn’t breathe. I was completely frozen in terror. The compulsion to run was stronger now than ever, but my feet wouldn’t move, as if they were rooted to the ground. Closer to or further from that monstrosity, it wouldn’t make a difference. I wasn’t moving from my spot no matter how much I willed it. I was a captive here now, held by whatever forces this creature brought upon us.

The man’s murmuring persisted. The spots on the fin cracked open, spilling that glowing light into the darkness of the sky. They were eyes, too. The man continued chanting as he drew the knife from his vest. The creature stopped when he approached, falling eerily still. The eyes kept glowing, unblinking, unchanging. 

“This is your last chance to leave,” the man said, turning to face me. Something about him seemed wrong. Even more wrong than the situation I was in, than the monster beached in front of me. I didn’t move. “Are you prepared to witness?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t say yes, I didn’t nod, I didn’t agree to anything. And, despite the indisputable wrongness of it all, I didn’t say no. The word wouldn’t form in my head. I couldn’t deny the experience being offered to me though every atom in my body was clamoring for me to do so.

“Then,” the man turned the knife in his hand, “witness.”

He wheeled back toward the creature’s exposed belly and drove the knife into it with a strangled battle cry. He rent the length of it, carving a trench from the underside of its jaw to the end of its tail, spilling guts and gore in a sick wave onto the rocks beneath his feet, splashing over his boots. Viscera flooded toward me, though it was reduced to only a trickle against the soles of my shoes by time it reached me.

My stomach churned. The ravenous winds drove the rotten stench mixed with the salt air across the shore. I swayed with it, as if it could carry me away from this if I allowed it to. But it wasn’t my choice. 

The man turned back to me. His eyes were glowing, too. That same, yellow-green of the creature that was lying behind him.

Then the waves stopped washing up on the shore. They pulled away from it, regressing and leaving the jagged rocks of the seabed exposed. A shadow rose from the shallows, dripping with the water it came from. It was massive. It filled my entire field of view.

Eyes covered the surface of the shadow in front of me, pouring that light over everything, glinting against the rain that now fell silently, glittering over the wet rocks. I was bathed in it, it tinted my skin, stained what little I could still see. The light was shining—the creature, that shadowed God, with its innumerable teeth and eyes, could see through me. That yellow-green light poured my entire existence into His perception. Suddenly, I felt Him. He arrived in a wash of frigid power, casting my mind out of my head and into freezing waters to reside there Himself. 

I was witnessing.  

Through His eyes I saw myself: a mass of screaming cells He could rearrange on a whim if He so chose. And He did. With His refracted, tessellated sight, I watched my skin split. Dozens and dozens of fissures opened over my body. The yellow-green light flickered like lightning bugs through the brush as the eyes opening all along my frame blinked rapidly. The change was immediate, it was infinite, it was beautiful.

Yes, We thought.

Pain burst behind my eyes. My eyes. I fell back against the rocks, jolted back into my body as if struck by lightning. They cut into my palms and forearms, but it was nothing in comparison to the burning in my eyes and agony in my head.

This was it. This God was going to end me. He’d decided, must have cast me out of His mind to crush me like an insect beneath a boot. I must have failed somehow, failed to see—

I heard the waves on the shore.

I looked up. The sky was still dark and shrouded with gray. Rain still lightly pattered. The thunderhead had mostly passed over us, still driving eastward. The ocean was once again washing upon the shore, blood no longer tainted the sand, and the monstrosity the fisherman had reeled in was gone.

He stood a few feet away from me, staring out across the waves with his blue eyes. The offal had been cleansed from the shore, but it still covered his boots. When he turned to look at me, his gaze locked with mine. A strange smile slowly spread across his face.

“You saw.” 

I nodded. There were no words. I could not describe the feeling. 

“He will be back again. One day. Maybe, by then, you’ll understand.”

I did not understand now. I didn’t think I would any time in the future, either. I did not argue with him.

“I have to…” My voice caught in my throat. I needed to leave, and finally, finally my feet obeyed. I stumbled over the jagged shore, and it was only when I stepped over the concrete barrier that I saw the toe of my shoe. Blood, remains of the sacrifice, still clung to the rubber sole.

With the sky still coated in gray, time seemed to have no meaning. It was as if my perception of it altogether had disappeared. As far as I knew, or even as far as I could feel, I could’ve been on the beach for mere minutes or endless days. I tilted my watch up, but the screen remained dim. Dead.

As I dropped my hand, a reflection against the dark glass caught my eye. I tilted it up, back toward my face, and my heart stopped in my chest. 

I stared at my reflection, fear flooding my senses as wide, yellow-green eyes stared back.

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Gwynne Olea is a Phoenix-based acrylic and oil painter whose artwork explores storytelling while evoking emotional states. Known for her abstract style, Gwynne creates a sense of freedom and movement on canvas. The goal is to help the observer see something different and unique in each painting based on their individual perspective.

Gwynne has a Bachelor of General Studies in dance, theatre and music from the University of Iowa and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Interior Design from Northern Arizona University. She has been taking art classes at Phoenix College for several years. Her pieces have been chosen to be displayed at the Eric Fischl Art Gallery over the past few years, and three years ago, she received the Eric Fischl Vanguard Award for Best of Show for one of her abstract pieces.

Gwynne plans to continue studying painting and photography at Phoenix College, as well as finding venues to showcase her artwork here in Phoenix. She is currently working on building a website, but until then, please feel free to contact her at gwynneolea@gmail.com.

Camryn Costello is currently living in Utah with her friends and her cats. She enjoys writing, hiking, and playing D&D. She plans to work as a freelance copyeditor and to continue writing in her spare time.