These waters are darkly stormy, but they invite me inward. There is no moonlight here, just the flicker of ancient lights and flip phones atop this long, wooden pier. It extends from the jagged stones of these rocky yellow shores into the monstrous waters. Droplets from the wind paint my smooth face with a chill otherwise unknown in June. Somewhere between the ambiguity of late evening and early morning, I lag behind the older ones as we march toward the end of this pier, plank by plank.
I picture sharks beneath these still, summertime waters. Leviathans that float close enough to the surface to gaze into the world above. But these thoughts are distractions. I will fish with the others and enjoy the night. More, there are other stories I’m thinking about. Somewhere on the far side of these waters, opposite this stony shore, I am astral, dreaming. Before this, at a steak dinner, my mind still escaped.
They are so much older than I. They are fluent in a Masonic tongue. Their cigarettes light the dock like torches at an altar, and to their beholders’ presence I am drawn, moth to flame. I am too young to be arrogant, so earnestly I accept all these things with reverence. Teach me your dark magic.
Moments later, they give me my rod. He has to prepare it in a flurry of hand motions. The clouds moved overhead, other lines dipped in and out of the black waters, and, as moments turned to hours, I finally felt something. A tug of war produces a fish – a big one, too. As soon as I’ve tossed it back, I’m reeling for another.
The A.M. drew further into the unknown, an atmosphere with which I was unfamiliar. This is not yet my time, I understood, but though I am a visitor, I am learning in perfect silence. These mercurial waters were hypnotic in their sinusoidal rhythms, and my mind completely slipped off the side of the docks as the stars moved up above. I lay on my back staring up like my own leviathan, gazing upward into an infinitely black sea. God’s black sea.
A question.
Breath like ashy smoke.
The waves beckoned.
“Maybe one day.”