a bend in the river, not a literary allusion

The bend in the river comes suddenly, doesn’t give you any chance to catch your breath; it’s like a dance that starts with someone taking your hand.

Jack and I worked together. What we did at work is left as an exercise for the reader. Suffice it to say that this fishing trip was one we had been on plenty of times before. Of course, on previous trips, more fish had been caught. On previous trips Jack had seemed happy.

“What’s on your mind Jack?”

“Nothing.” He spit into the water.

“Nothing?”

“Well, there’s all this blue water around.”

“Sure enough.”

“And I just have to wonder, there’s so much blue water in the world. Why isn’t it the whole world? What purpose do we serve?”

“Purpose?”

“Yeah. I guess I’m asking, why the fuck are we even here.”

“That’s not easy to answer Jack. You like Press Play?”

“They’re good enough.”

I turned the iPod on to ‘Strawberry’.

“You like this song?” I took a worm and hooked it.

“It’s good enough.”

“Don’t you get it Jack? We’re here to appreciate these things. The song. The fishing line going south. The journey.”

“Sometimes the journey seems painful and silly.”

“But that’s the beauty. Did you like Nirvana?”

“The band?”

“Yeah.”

“I liked ‘Come as you are.'”

“Great song. Here’s the thing. In order to write it Kurt, he was the main songwriter, had to be in a lot of pain.”

“Yeah?”

“But beauty came out of it nonetheless. No?”