The soggy floorboards creak underneath my feet as I walk down the pier, my fingers loosely intertwined with my dad’s sweaty hand. Frowning as I look at my flip flops, I wish I could just be barefoot. Why do there have to be rules about wearing shoes in places that are outside? It’s not like my feet are bothering anybody. I just want to feel the texture of the damp wood beneath my soles. I can easily take in the scenery: the yards of open pier ahead of me, the miles upon miles of ocean around me, the strip of beach below, and the shops sprawled out at my back. I can see all of these things, but my feet are currently blind to their beauty. I overhear my uncle animatedly explaining the basics of fishing to my sister as we walk to an empty spot overlooking the frothy blue expanse below us. The sky is dotted with cotton ball clouds, and the breeze blows through my frizzy hair; the salt of the sea embedding itself into my nostrils and the sun rays absorbing into my hair. We stop at the edge, and my dad hands me the fishing pole he rented. I have never been fishing before, partly because I’ve never been interested in the idea of stabbing a living thing when I have perfectly good food at home, and partly because my dad has never been the “manly” type who enjoys hobbies like fishing or carpentry. I was raised spending mornings on my dad’s lap watching him play his Resident Evil game through the gaps in my fingers.
My dad smiles down at me, and re-explains how to put the bait on the hook, and to reel in the line when I feel it tug. I nod, wrap my stubby fingers around the grips on the pole, and quickly realize that I can’t see very well over the edge. My line of sight is fairly obscured by the wooden posts. I look behind me and see a bench, so I decide to use it to stand on. It’s about half a foot from the edge, so it should be fine as long as no one walks in front of me. Once up there, I can survey everything. I watch as a couple paraglides overhead, the neon pink and green of their chute stark against the pale sky. I think about what it would be like to have my legs dangling below me as I sail through the sky, and a thrill runs through me. Heights have always been fascinating to me. I don’t really mind being up high. It’s different to feel like I can survey everything before me, and really take in the beauty of it all. Heights aren’t what bother me; it’s falling that keeps me up at night. I feel the fishing pole move, and it jerks me out of my thoughts. I figured there would be no chance I would catch anything, so I completely zoned out. Now I’m frantically reeling in the line, pulling up whatever was unlucky enough to get caught on my hook. Once I finally pull it up all the way, I see a baby shark dangling on the line, the hook stuck through his lip. I freeze. I know this is what we came here for in the first place; to catch whatever we could, and spend time together as a family, but I only came because my dad promised that he’d buy me a snow cone. I didn’t actually expect to catch anything, and now that I have, I can’t process it. My dad sees the look on my face, and he gently takes the pole from my hand. I watch as he holds the baby, its body struggling to stay alive. Blood is trickling out of the wound, and the hook is barbed on the end, so it can’t get free on its own. My dad works swiftly, but gently. He threads the hook back through the shark’s lip, and carefully pulls it back out of its mouth. He glances at me then, and then back out at the ocean as he drops it back into the water. The rest of my family has noticed what has happened at this point, but they don’t say anything. They see the tears running down my cheeks, and probably decide it’s best to let me be. My dad grabs my hand again, and leads me back down the pier, away from everyone else. I can hear my sister protesting behind me, and my mom shushing her. She’s too young to understand much at this point. As my dad and I wander down the pier back towards the city, I feel droplets start to fall onto my arms. It starts slowly at first, just occasional brushes of the skin and pecks on the cheek, blending in with the tears now drying on my face. The downpour happens without warning. The rain goes from caressing to slapping against our skin. We’re running now toward the car, my flip flops making it hard to keep up. Eventually I just ditch them altogether, deciding to cling onto them instead. It definitely makes running easier. Now I finally get to feel the planks beneath my feet; albeit in a different way than I would have liked. When we finally reach the car, we’re coated in rain and laughing hysterically. The memory of the shark is fading now, being replaced by running on a rain soaked pier. My dad promises to buy me a snow cone once the rain lets up, and I can almost taste the blue raspberry syrup coating my mouth. It’s odd looking back on this scene now. I can still feel the way my hair felt plastered to my face, and how the clothes clung to my body as I sat in our beat up maroon minivan. I remember my boisterous, fish-loving uncle, my mom’s multitude of shopping bags rhythmically smacking against her leg as she walked, my sister’s small messy hands still covered in sand, and the ancient men sitting on the pier and thinking about life as they spent long boring hours waiting for something that is just an empty promise in the end. Most of all though, I remember that day as a day with my dad. I asked him years later if he thinks that shark lived, and he said “Definitely not. We were too high up, and it was bleeding. It probably got eaten by something bigger. I’m glad it rained like it did, otherwise I would have had to buy you two snow cones.” Comments are closed.
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