The Ocho

I spent a pretty good portion of my youth fishing. I remember that the first time my awesome killing force descended onto a river, intending to exercise my power over other creatures, I caught a carp that was pushing 7 centimeters. I decided benevolence would be the order of the day. As fishy was a worthy adversary, having caught her only by the tail instead of the mouth, I returned her to her murky life.

My mercy was indeed beautiful and grand on that muddy little eddy in the shadow of a little twenty foot cliff. The cliff was an HO model railroad version of the grand canyon. Some years later, I had another fishing adventure under the HO grand canyon. Sam (my once friendly, now angry uncle) and my older brother johosephim took me out under the shadow to mitigate the perch population of that swirling pool. Ahh, the killing was great and unbiased…young, old, skinny, and fat. We must have taken over twenty lives that day. Legal limits be damned. I say we, but that is a bit of a misnomer. I was not fortunate enough to personally take a single soul. My hooks were as spoons to the fish. They were as pillows. The fish snuggled with my bait for hours. I felt them caressing my line- lovers on a warm summer day in the back forty, away from prying eyes. I knew what was happening down below, but I kept it a secret from my fellow would be murderers. I enjoyed sensing the presence of other creatures so close, but lacked to urge to kill them.

How weak they’d have thought me, though already they sensed it. I was not meant to kill fish. I suppose that I didn’t truly want to either (again the secret that I kept even from myself). The closest I came was to act as an accomplice to murder. I held my feet in the log, blocking the exit, so others could reach in a pull out the eighty pound catfish by their gills…ok, not their gills (catfish are gill deficient…poor things…other fish stare and sometimes snicker behind their dorsal fins), but you get the point. I would also hold them down, while grandpa dale shoved a small twig into their brains. Should god st. peter judge based on cowardice, I am screwed. Neither would I kill, nor would I stop the killing.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
by Richard Brautigan

I’d like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace

And to think, I’ve never fished for trout on the Niangua…Only in my waking dreams.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 5:48 pm and is filed under certain death. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.