The Fisher Man

His job was a strange one. When the other fishing boats came back to the shelter of the harbour for the waves were too rough to risk he would untie his craft and set out.

They would stand on the top the sea wall sheltering their faces from the freezing spray and mutter to each other about his foolhardiness. Then they would turn and walk down to the pub before the weather turned so bad it was not safe to be out.

Not one could understand what he was doing, not one could understand why he only went out in the roughest of weather. No one could give any answers because no one had ever spoken to him. He would only arrive at his boat when the weather was so rough, sky so dark and the sailors so busy with trying to moor their craft safely that no one had ever had the chance to speak with him.

In fact no one could even describe him other than he was like the shadow of a man who appeared and disappeared without a glance to them. Just once a fishermen saw his face in the lightening and that he had such a grey green pallor that he had been forced to look away. No one knew if that was true because he was a friend known to exaggerate after a few pints but by the end of any drinking session they all agreed that there was something about the stranger that made them uneasy.

Out on the roughest sea the man cast his net over the side and sat back to wait. This was a sea that would deliver. He glanced up at the sky as the moon cast a silver sheen across the tops of the wave. Dark clouds stole the light until all that challenged the darkness was the slight glow from his pipe marking the throwing of the boat from wave to wave.

Hours later, as the seas began to settle the man began to draw in his net. As it came on board it was clear that it was empty of fish. Indeed the netting was so strange in its structure that it was unclear what manner of creature it could catch. As he heaved over the end of the net he gazed at its emptiness.

As the fishermen returned to the Quay to check their boats they saw the man’s moored in its usual place. What they couldn’t see as the sun began to rise was the old man carrying his net to the graveyard on the hill. For only he knew what he had to do.

At the graveyard he lay the next on the grass and pulled it open. Only he could hear the sound of the wind, only he could see the feint silvery shapes, only he could see them finding their graves. Only he, for he was the fisher of souls. He was the fisherman who returned the drowned to their earthly resting place and he had done so for as long as men had been fishing.

He stared with sadness at the souls still caught in the net. For them there would be no resting place until the bodies were found and for some that would never happen. These would have to be thrown back when the darkness returned.