The Fisherman

by John Langan

I woke up and thought, I’d like to go fishing. Scratch that. I woke up and thought, I need to go fishing. I needed it the deep-down way you need that tall glass of water with the ice cubes clinking around in it at three o’clock on a blistering July afternoon.

Can relate

When I was at the river, though, if I didn’t feel any better, at least I didn’t feel any worse.

With each year that passed, I came to ask myself if Marie might not have gone out of this world so much as gone more deeply into it. From being wrapped up in earth, maybe she’d made her way out into it, into the soil, the water, until she was part of things.

Lovely way of viewing the passing of loved ones

I’d like to say this was because I’d been so busy in the interval, or because my own private life had been very good or even very bad, but I’m afraid none of that would be true. Not much more than out of sight, out of mind, I fear. It’s hard to hold onto any tragedies that aren’t your own for very long.

In the short term, folks can show compassion like you wouldn’t believe; wait a couple of weeks, though, a couple of months at the outside, and see how well their sympathy holds.

Vital to learn how to support folks experiencing grief - it doesn’t just go away

But there are some things, no matter if they’re true, you can’t live with them. You have to refuse them. You turn your eyes away from whatever’s squatting right there in front of you and not only pretend it isn’t there now, but that you never saw it in the first place. You do so because your soul is a frail thing that can’t stand the blast-furnace heat of revelation, and truth be damned. What else can a body do?

This was not, as management had started trumpeting, your father’s IBM, which I guess meant it wasn’t my IBM. The notion of a corporate family that took care of its own and in so doing earned their loyalty was on the way out, evicted by simple greed.

Workplace culture and treatment of staff has changed (for the worse) since the 70s/80s

I’m among the “a bad day of fishing is still better than a good day of just about anything else” crowd.

what can’t be cured must be endured,

people’s memories are short for any sorrow that isn’t theirs, and his job has to be done. Over the course of those seven days, a number of people, including Rainer, try to talk to the man, with no success. Wherever he is in his dark room, he’s unreachable.

He figures if he keeps on smiling, he’ll be able to convince everyone else that everything is fine, and then maybe they’ll be able to convince him.

Life goes on. That’s the remarkable thing, isn’t it?