The man caught a lot of fish.

Where he’d come from, none of the others could remember. One day, he was just there. Someone had happened upon him as he was walking away from the riverbank – he was carrying a giant, handwoven sack-like net, and the someone-who-had-happened-upon-the-man had to ask: What have you got there? Because, the net was very full, expanded like the belly of some enormous and pregnant beast.

Fish, said the man. Fish.

The someone-who-had-happened-upon-the-man-and-had-had-to-ask-what-have-you-got-there could not believe this. He asked that the fisherman open the giant, handwoven sack-like net and show to him that that the net was indeed pregnant, as it were, with fish.

The fisherman (if that’s what he really was) turned his back on his inquisitor, and spoke. Come back tomorrow, he said. With these words, he set off through the woods, his feet treading gently and the net – the strangely, voluptuously full net – following faithfully behind him, crushing everything in its path.

The inquisitor ran and told others about the man: this stranger at the riverbank had what must have been twentyfive-hundred fish with him as he left. Perhaps it was more than twentyfive-hundred. It could have been ten-thousand-five-hundred. Who knows? …He told them about the giant, handwoven sack-like net.

Did you see inside it, they asked?

No, said their friend, the inquisitor.

They laughed at him, and accused him of being an idiot for being fooled by the man at the riverbank. Or worse, one of them suggested, he’s lying to us! With this the twelve biggest of the others picked up the stones that they had been sitting on and beat their friend, the inquisitor, to death.

Perhaps, though, one of them said, we should go to the riverbank tomorrow and see if there’s a man there, catching a lot of fish. The others of the others conceded that this couldn’t hurt.

They drank things and went to sleep. In the late morning they began to arise and assemble. Eventually one of them remembered the idea of going to the riverbank to look for the stranger, and after some debate, they agreed again that it couldn’t hurt to take a walk back to the riverbank.

There, standing ankle-deep was the stranger. He was mindfully casting his line into the river. Just behind him where dry land met river was the net, splayed open like a giant sheet. There in the center of it was a pile of fish, itself ankle-deep.

Their friend, the inquisitor, was no liar. Sadly, his life and death were already forgotten; so amazing was the sight of the stranger before him. One of the others emitted a hearty cough to announce their collective presence and to get the man’s attention.

In answer, the man whipped his line back and pulled a giant freshwater fish, its silver scales glistening as brilliantly and individually as each facet of each jewel in a mesh of diamonds, out of the water and into the cool air. Gently as he could, he pulled the hook from the fish’s mouth and then walked back and placed the fish on top of its brethren.

He went back to his spot.

The one who had coughed decided to try again, this time with words. How long have you been here? he asked.

The stranger looked up into sky and at the sun. Then he said, The sun has moved a thumb’s width.

You mean to say, said another of the others, that you have been for an hour, at most?

I don’t know, said the man.

The others looked around. Hmmm, one of them said. Then another one of them spoke:

The stranger plucked another fish from the water liked it was a plug of grass from soil. Then he did it again.

This was hardly a suitable answer, so the question was asked again, but this time more directly: What do you do with all those fish?

I feed people, he said.

Then he closed up the giant, handwoven sack-like net, and, again headed off through the woods.

It would be a while before he was seen again. The others imagined him roving the earth, tirelessly, flinging fish into the arms of the poor. After a short while the story of the magician-fisherman-stranger – who had arrived from nowhere and had vanished, his giant, handwoven sack-like net as full as the belly of some pregnant beast – became local legend.

They waited for him to return.

After a while, they forgot about him.

Then, suddenly, years later, one of the others in the group had a thought. He gathered the others around them and challenged them with a question:

Do you remember that man who caught all those fish?

Yes, they all said. Sure we do.

That’d be something if he came back, said the one who had gathered them together.

Yes, they all said. It would.

They decided, again, to wait.

Even more years have passed now; think at least thirty or so. Everyone has more or less moved on and nearly forgotten about the fisherman. Those of the group who had decided, again, to wait had all, at one point or another since then, quit waiting. Every now and then at a gathering someone would say Remember that fellow? The fisherman? And those who remembered would let out a little snort, to say Oh yes, the fisherman. I’d nearly forgotten him. But that was it.

What the mind may not retain, sometimes matter can. There were documents. Here and there throughout the area were parchments and carvings, often created by childlike hands in idle moments, depicting the fisherman. Or, a fisherman. A fisherman, nonetheless, and certainly one with a giant sack-like net. And all of these images carried with them inscriptions, hand-lettered epigrams and captions that served to explain the riddle of the fisherman to the viewer:

The man caught a lot of fish, read one.

How did he do that? read another

and Where did he go? read yet another.

While this group generally was in a sort of harmony with their environment, as much as any others in the region, some of these documents remained undisposed-of and lingered around the group’s area.

Only when one of the newer generation of the group returned from the riverbank and told a story about a man, a strange man with a giant sack-like net, who was catching a lot of fish, did one of the older ones recall the image and say to their own child, Like that drawing of yours that I found.

Initially, the child did not remember this. So the older one said, I’ll find it. And they found it and the child said, Now I remember.

Remember what?

All the oldest ones were talking about this fisherman. Hold on, it’ll come to me. The others waited and then, finally the child said: Oh yes. The man caught a lot of fish.

How did he do that? said the child’s parent.

And where did he go? said another.

Yes, said the child. That’s right.

There were other fishermen, of course, but the man who had caught that lot of fish and walked away into the forest with his giant sack-like net was no ordinary fisherman. It would have been difficult, for instance, to come up with such a lengthy description for any of the other fishermen known to the group. They fished; true. But that was about it. Their nets were just nets.

His was no ordinary net.

But that’s for another time.

This description – the man who had caught that lot of fish and walked away into the forest with his giant sack-like net – soon became his name. Or, rather, any variation that contained all of the basic elements (the lot of fish, the disappearance into the forest, the net) could function as his name. And so, his was not an easy name to use casually. The group eventually agreed without a word: it was too long. It was one thing to pass the story down once a generation. It was another thing for those who might make reference to the legend of the fisherman a little more often, or, say, constantly.

For a while they called him "The Fisherman." It seemed to make sense. For after all, on paper, that’s all he was: a man who caught fish. But there were other, less legendary fishermen. In fact, there were many of these other men, as it seemed every man in the group fished fairly often. Sometimes it was for the simple thrill of it (this was something the women did not seem to appreciate) or to feed their families (something all could appreciate equally). But the women didn’t fish. At least, not publicly.

The women of the group were excellent fishers. Each and every woman had voluntarily mastered the art early in her life. But each and everyone soon outgrew it, and moved on to more advanced pursuits. The men would be more suited to something like fishing. The women had other things to tend to.

Now and then, a woman might be seen knee-deep in the river, waiting artfully for her line to become taut. But she would never be seen by a man’s eyes. The women knew better. And so it was that not a single man had ever known the ecstatic awe inspired by the vision of his mate – transformed so beautifully – with her reflection scattered across the ripples of the river as she waded, plucked, and flung various fish out of their watery world and behind her into a hulking, wet, and shiny pile of other fishes’ bodies. Ever.

Based on this simple fact, that the women didn’t fish – this qualified as fact in the men’s minds – the newer shorter name of "The Fisherman" was redundant. For every man was a fisher. (A fact that many of the men felt was stressed negatively thanks to the The. Why should this fisherman get to be called The, while the common men had to settle for a simple A?)

Again, this was an issue that the women agreed was best left to the men, who seemed to care far more about such things. So, the redundant part, -man, remained.

The men agreed, unspokenly, that the fish- part was essential. That seemed obvious enough.

So, they dropped what was left.

All involved quickly decided that Fish-Man, as a name, was no improvement.

For a while, the magician-fisherman-stranger went nameless.

And so, without the proper words, those who told his story tried to speak his name in pictures.

The man's name, which had begun as  a long string of words, had developed into the crudest representation of a simple symbol; that of a fish, of which the man had had a famous mastery.

From there, through time, the fish evolved...

…into something else entirely.

The story of the man was universal, that is, among the universe of the group. Everywhere – carved randomly into the bark of trees, etched upon the entrance of every dwelling, was the symbol. It appeared on clothing, on paper, on currency. The symbol and the legend it encapsulated were now the symbol and the story of the group itself. It was their heritage, and everyone knew the image: the fish, flipping back upon itself as if it were one fish morphing into another and another, endlessly.

The symbol was adopted by all of the other fishermen, as if to illustrate just how other they actually were not. Each raft soon bore the mark, but soon this was not enough for the individual fishermen, each of whom felt that it was he who came closest to the ideal of the long-gone and mysterious man – sharing his limitless mastery, his dominion over the elements, the land, and the water. It was not enough to simply wear the mark. A true fisherman would bear the mark. A true fisherman would have it in his blood.

The largest of the men – as good and simple a soul as one could expect, unless he’d had things to drink – was the first to lay his forearm down across the planks of the common-table and say, It is in my blood, brothers. How many of you can say the same?

And his brothers (the women were nowhere to be seen) gathered around the common table and stared: there, etched into a forearm as large as the smallest man’s thigh, blue-black like a vein looping over itself, was the symbol. The shallow grooves in the man’s skin still wept fresh blood, which, mixed with the ink, gave the endless fish an extra dimension to its visual quality, as if it were shimmering. The vision of it seemed to jump off the man’s skin and right into the centers of the brains of all the others.

Oooh, they all said.

How many, boomed the giant man, can say the same?

None could say the same.

Just then, a group of boys, who had only just begun their training, came up dragging their forlorn and mostly-empty nets, to see what all the men were staring at. When the boys got close enough to behold the giant man’s tattoo, they too said Oooh.

I want one! said one boy. I do too! said all of the others.

Not until you’re a man, said the first boy’s father.

Confused and dejected, the boy asked: But then, where’s yours?

Not even twelve hours had passed by the time the father of the confused and dejected boy could announce to his fellow men that he, too, had it in his blood.

Within thirty hours all of the rest of the men had gone under the needle in order to truly bear the mark, as well.

Not even seventy-two hours had passed from the time the giant man had first displayed his marked skin to the others. His own mark had not even fully healed yet. And yet, in that sliver of time, it would come to pass that not only did every man in the group bear the mark, but that, by law, none of them would have had a choice in the matter. Nor the boys, once they came of age. Nor any who followed them.

The words that had described the man were long-gone. No one spoke of the man who’d caught the lot of fish any more.

Even fragments of the simplest name had dropped: From "fisherman," they had cut the "er," and soon, even the "fish."

The symbolism of the symbol itself – of the endless fish – had been, through time and man alone, decoded and recoded.

The symbol now meant: Man.

impermanent.net. copyright 2002 by rod sperry.
site design and maintenance by impermanent.
email: rs@impermanent.net