A Fish Story
Jun. 2nd, 2005 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeanvieveShe didn't quite believe me at first about the fish. Superstitions in this modern age are dismissed, scoffed at. Surely I must be misremembering, that there was a time once in my life when someone near me had caught a fish.
I have no memories of fish being caught, ever. Anywhere near me. It was a hard notion to swallow for someone who has fished and caught fish, and so mom laughed a little as we walked out to the edge of the Golden Horn to sit with our leftover cherries, eggs, apple, to watch the sun go down on our last day in Istanbul. To watch the fisherman at work. And she saw the truth first hand.
The men fished, all and only men. Not a lady cast a line into the water, though some were gathered a short distance away to sit in lawn chairs and watch their men at work. Children playered here and there, with two probably feral but well fed cats working the crowd for bits and leftovers near the fish buckets. The fishermen work in teams, with one man casting out lines with multiple hooks. Their second stands ready with a bucket to remove the fish, drop them in the bucket, rebait as needed though I'm not sure what they used for bait. Still, a slick operation further down where I was not.
To our left, the fisherman's second clearly sensed the loss of jhor or luck with a slow, puzzled look around the retaining wall as we settled in. He wandered off nearly immediately with the bucket in hand, as if silently aware that the fate had changed. Aware that the fisherman to our left would have no need of him, no more sardine looking things to be caught that evening. Still, the left handed fisher kept casting, hooking the occasional bits of jellyfish, sea weed.
To the right, fisher two and his second out and below us on the rocks past the retaining wall kept casting. Twenty minutes of nothing for either man flanking us while we ate, while further on down in both directions out of my sphere of influence a steady stream of silver sardines slithered in alliteratively. Then the right handed fisher hooked one, a small morsel held up in triumph by his second once removed from the hook. As mom was starting to say, "Look, you're not bad luck. He-", the second TOSSED the little fish toward the bucket with a smile our way. A fool, to reintroduce chance to a sure thing. The fish, of course, missed the bucket entirely and flopped its desperate and grateful way down the mossy rocks back into the sea with a final wave of its tail my way, and just as the fisherman who caught it turned to look.
Turks talk a lot with their hands when excited by strong emotions.
A few casts later, despite the distance between them with strangers in between and all the sea and current against them, the right and left handed fishermans' lines caught and crossed. The snag was down by the mossiest rocks, so near where a person could slip and fall into the aforementioned jellyfish laden waters. The second, in disgrace still for losing the small fish with the ill chosen toss, had to climb out and untangle.
At last she believed. Mom suggested we remove my presence to both save lives and help promote industry. Perhaps these men had families at home that were counting on fish for dinner. We retreated for their sake.
Fish think I'm a beautiful person.
I have no memories of fish being caught, ever. Anywhere near me. It was a hard notion to swallow for someone who has fished and caught fish, and so mom laughed a little as we walked out to the edge of the Golden Horn to sit with our leftover cherries, eggs, apple, to watch the sun go down on our last day in Istanbul. To watch the fisherman at work. And she saw the truth first hand.
The men fished, all and only men. Not a lady cast a line into the water, though some were gathered a short distance away to sit in lawn chairs and watch their men at work. Children playered here and there, with two probably feral but well fed cats working the crowd for bits and leftovers near the fish buckets. The fishermen work in teams, with one man casting out lines with multiple hooks. Their second stands ready with a bucket to remove the fish, drop them in the bucket, rebait as needed though I'm not sure what they used for bait. Still, a slick operation further down where I was not.
To our left, the fisherman's second clearly sensed the loss of jhor or luck with a slow, puzzled look around the retaining wall as we settled in. He wandered off nearly immediately with the bucket in hand, as if silently aware that the fate had changed. Aware that the fisherman to our left would have no need of him, no more sardine looking things to be caught that evening. Still, the left handed fisher kept casting, hooking the occasional bits of jellyfish, sea weed.
To the right, fisher two and his second out and below us on the rocks past the retaining wall kept casting. Twenty minutes of nothing for either man flanking us while we ate, while further on down in both directions out of my sphere of influence a steady stream of silver sardines slithered in alliteratively. Then the right handed fisher hooked one, a small morsel held up in triumph by his second once removed from the hook. As mom was starting to say, "Look, you're not bad luck. He-", the second TOSSED the little fish toward the bucket with a smile our way. A fool, to reintroduce chance to a sure thing. The fish, of course, missed the bucket entirely and flopped its desperate and grateful way down the mossy rocks back into the sea with a final wave of its tail my way, and just as the fisherman who caught it turned to look.
Turks talk a lot with their hands when excited by strong emotions.
A few casts later, despite the distance between them with strangers in between and all the sea and current against them, the right and left handed fishermans' lines caught and crossed. The snag was down by the mossiest rocks, so near where a person could slip and fall into the aforementioned jellyfish laden waters. The second, in disgrace still for losing the small fish with the ill chosen toss, had to climb out and untangle.
At last she believed. Mom suggested we remove my presence to both save lives and help promote industry. Perhaps these men had families at home that were counting on fish for dinner. We retreated for their sake.
Fish think I'm a beautiful person.
