The Fisherman

by John Langan

once we’d gone our separate ways, everything seemed a bit less bright than it had while we were sitting together.

Loss is—it’s like a ladder you don’t know you’re standing at the top of and that reaches down, way down past the loss of your job, your possessions, your home; past the loss of your parents, your spouse, your children; down to the loss of your very life—and, I’ve since come to believe, past even that.

People—rows and rows of people floated there, most of them submerged to their shoulders, a few to their chins, fewer still to their eyes. I couldn’t guess their number, because they extended into the deeper dark. Their skin was damp, white, their hair lank, their eyes gleaming gold. It didn’t take me long to pick out Marie in the midst of them, not as close as I would have supposed. Her face was blank, as were those of the children to either side of her. A girl and a boy, their features in that in-between stage when childhood is beginning to make way for adolescence. Their mouths were open; I glimpsed rows of serrated teeth. Their eyes were vacant of any intelligence. They had, I fancied, my mother’s nose.