Heretical Fishing

Chapter 30: Hubris

Icrouched, creeping across the sands as I approached my quarry. The morning was the coldest yet, an icy breeze kicking up and petering out in the predawn light, but I barely felt the chill, focused as I was on the hunt. One final step, and I was looming over my target. I reached down, a thrill running through me. With careful silence, I started tickling my guard crab.

Sergeant Snips was asleep by the fire, small flames licking up against the bottom of the pot within it. Her legs kicked out spasmodically, extending from her curled-up form as her body reacted to the soft touch of my hands. Her body went rigid, and her eyestalk sprouted upward. It turned, locking onto me. I gave her only a small reprieve before I resumed my tickling tenfold.

“Good morning, Snips!”

She hissed laughter, blowing bubbles and trying to escape my probing fingers.

I let her go, and she ran side to side on the spot, reminding me of nothing so much as a puppy woken from a dream. Kneeling down, I stroked her carapace, and she leaned into it, blowing bubbles of excitement.

“Sorry, Snips—I couldn’t help myself. Did you sleep well?”

She nodded, and puffing up with pride, pointed at the flickering fire.

“I saw! Did you tend to it all night?”

She nodded again, her eye gleaming.

“Thanks, Snips. Don’t know what I’d do without you.” I peered into the pot, seeing the salt water at a calm boil.

“What do you reckon, Snips?” I turned to her. “Brekky first, or check the crab pot, then brekky?”

She hissed incomprehensibly, but both claws pointed to the shore.

“Aye, Snips! Lead the way, my trusty sergeant!”

Barry woke to the growing light of a predawn sky, the open window letting a breeze blow through that irritated his dry eyes. He’d had another fitful night of little sleep, and as if to punctuate this thought, his tormentor spoke.

Please select a name.

He groaned in frustration, pulling the sheets over his head.

“Dear?” his wife asked, her voice laced with worry. She pulled the covers down, staring into his eyes,

“It’s not like you to let sickness keep you from the fields—what is it?”

He’d had enough; he couldn’t ignore the truth any longer. “It’s the System, Helen.” His voice was flat, unfeeling.

“. . . the System?”

Barry felt her body jolt upright.

“It’s come for me—it’s asking me to select a name . . .”

“Oh, Barry . . .” She moved, coming to lie between the crook of his arm and chest, resting her head above his heart. “I’m so sorry.”

They lay in silence, both contemplating the future.

“What are we going to do?” His voice cracked.

She sat up, determination settling on her face as she set her jaw. “Nothing. We’re going to do nothing, Barry. We tell no one, and we live our life as we always have—tending the fields and our family.”

Barry let out a tired noise, a mirthless chuckle. “How can you be so calm, Helen? After everything that happened with your brother—”

“Because I have to be.” She put a hand on his chest, smiling down at him. “You’re going to be fine, my love—we’re going to be fine. Who knows? This could even be a good thing. Maybe you’ll get some sort of farming powers!”

He laughed, this time a genuine one. It swept his worries away, if only momentarily. He raised a hand, caressing his wife’s cheek. “What would I do without you guiding me, my love?”

She leaned into the touch, a smile returning her affection for him. “You’d lay in this bed until you wasted away.”

She got up, throwing the covers off. “Now, let’s get up and have some breakfast. I’m sure Paul would love to see your face, too.”

Barry let out a long sigh, willing the exhaustion to leave him. He got to his feet, stretching his stiff body. As if to break his resolve, the tormentor returned, a blinking line demanding action.

Please select a name.

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He clenched his jaw. Barry, he thought. My name is Barry.

Name “Barry” has been accepted. Welcome to the Kallis Realm.

“Are you ready, Snips?”

She nodded fervently, punctuating it with a single hiss. I nodded back with a grin and started pulling in the line. It was so heavy I thought it was lodged in the sand at first, but when the weight didn’t decrease, excitement welled within me. Hand over hand, I pulled the line in toward the shore. I finally caught sight of the crab pot, a single mass of brown becoming visible beneath the ocean surface.

“No way, Snips!”

When part of the trap and the crabs within breached the surface, the line started stretching, and I had to run down and grab the handle. I pulled it onto the shore with a sliding movement, and Snips let out an excited hissed that matched my own thoughts perfectly.

The bottom of the trap was filled with sand crabs.

Looks like the eel was a much more effective bait than the fish . . .

The System tried to bother me, but it was only a small nudge—easily ignorable.

Not right now, System. I’m crabbing.

I counted the crabs in the pot aloud, thrilled with the haul. “. . . nine, ten, eleven!” I turned to Snips. “Eleven crabs!”

Her claw moved along with my finger as I pointed to each, and she raised her claws to the sky, clacking in victory.

I opened the trap, checking each crab’s bottom carapace as I went. There were six females, and I lobbed them carefully into the waves. That left five males—a veritable feast.

“I say we put some back. What do you think, Snips?”

She looked at the five massive males in the trap, then turned to me, nodding.

“How many should we keep?”

She started drawing in the sand, cutting three lines and pointing down at the tally.

I smiled and nodded my assent. “A respectable number. Split one for breakfast and one each for lunch?”

She blew bubbles of joy, and I withdrew the two smallest crabs, setting them free.

I tied the claws of the three crabs, not wanting them to snip at each other while I took them back to the house.

“All right! Let’s go get our breakfast started!”

We took the cooked crab down to the beach to watch the sunrise. The sun crested the horizon just as the crab was cool enough to eat, and we both ate in comfortable silence, me with the occasional cracking of shell, Snips with steady, soft crunching as she ate it whole.

Just as I was about to crack the body open and get to the sweet flesh inside, a familiar, adorable head breached the water in front of us. The otter stared intently at my meal, its little sniffer twitching at the aroma of the crab.

Snips got to her feet, letting out a warning hiss, but I put a calming hand on her shell.

“Do you want some?” I asked.

The otter stared between me and the food, cocking its head back and forth with a clear lack of comprehension.

I broke what was left of the crab in half with one hand, and with an underhanded throw, tossed it on the sands before me. The otter flinched back, but seeing I didn’t throw anything at it, crept forward. One tentative step at a time, it moved like a liquid, its eyes locked on Snips. It stopped only a few more steps from the offered meal, its little eyebrows twitching as it stared at the violently capable crab.

With sudden clarity, I realized it was staring at her eye patch. It seemed intrigued, curious about the garment.

“It’s called an eye patch,” I said softly.

The otter took a step back, turning its attention to me.

“I made it for Sergeant Snips because she wanted a hat—I thought it was fitting of her nature, and honestly, mate, it’s rather fetching.”

Snips, hearing my words and understanding what the otter had been staring at, puffed herself up, blowing bubbles of pride.

“You can take the crab.” I gestured at the chunk I’d thrown on the sand. “It’s a freely given gift.”

The otter didn’t move, looking between me, the food, and my spikey guard crab, its nose twitching the entire time. Eventually, its hunger won out. It darted forward, bit down with its chompers on the morsel, and ran back to the safety of the ocean, its head turned to the side and watching us as it departed.

I smiled. One step closer to having an otter pal . . .

I stroked Snips’s shell, once more imagining the otter on my other side, just us three versus the world.

“All right, Snips!” I got to my feet, brushing sand from my pants. “Let’s get to fishin’!”

We walked the rod and associated tackle down to the beach. I cut a small section of flesh from the eel, sliding it over the sharpened hook of my larger rod with ease.

“Reckon we’ll catch something good today, Snips?”

She nodded her entire body, blowing affirmative bubbles.

I grinned down at her. “One way to find out!”

I stood and looked out at the ocean. The sun was still low enough to peek beneath the brim of my hat, its soft rays covering my body in a blanket of warmth.

A perfect day for fishing . . .

I started swinging the rock, round and round until it gained enough momentum. I let go, watching the sinker, hook, and bait fly out. It hit the water with a soft plop twenty meters from the shore. I let it sink, and after a few seconds, I felt the tap of the rock hitting the sandy floor. I took a step back, ensuring the line went taut, and sat down on the beach next to Snips. I closed my eyes, laying back against the sloped beach and keeping one hand on the rod, one hand on Snips’s reassuring carapace.

“This is the life . . .”

She hissed her agreement and settled her body further down into the sand.

Unbidden, my mind wandered back to my time on Earth, and the air seemed to thicken around me. A life spent throwing relationships by the wayside—a life wasted on the pursuit of a goal, that when achieved, brought with it only misery.

How did I not see the emptiness of it all beforehand . . . ?

My father’s words from before his passing echoed in my ears.

“This is my legacy and your birthright, son. This is what you were made for—it’s your obligation, your responsibility when I’m gone.”

There had been hints that it wasn’t for me; my subconscious whispered to me, attempting to warn me that it wouldn’t bring me joy. I had ignored them all. The weight of expectation was too much, and rather than railing against the sunk-cost fallacy, I’d leaned into it, using how many years I’d spent on training and preparing as a way to heap even more weight onto my own shoulders.

Every personal relationship was burned, cast aside for one misguided obligation or another. All the while, my father would tell me it’s just “what people like us did.”

No wonder my mother disappeared when I was so young . . .

At this thought, an all-encompassing resentment and anger flooded through the gates, all too happy to leap at my moment of weakness. I sat with it, and rather than process the emotions, pushed them aside.

My therapist’s words rose up in response, reminding me just how futile an action that was.

“You can’t push the feelings down—it’s normal to have conflicting emotions when parents pass, and you’ll have to work through them before you can move on and live a happy life.”

I’m not ready . . .

Foolish as I knew it to be, the resentment was too much for me, and I redirected my frustrations toward the businesses I inherited—every manipulation, underhanded tactic, and unethical dealing; all of my energy, all of that time . . .

My father’s—no, my corporations. I’d suspected it would be confronting, but when I took over the role of CEO, the veil had been lifted, and it was worse than I could have ever imagined. The companies squeezed every cent they could from customers and employees both. Each person’s quality of life was wrung out like an old towel, sold the lie that our new product would solve all their problems—if they purchased just one more thing.

Safety suggestions were ignored if deemed too costly, profit set above all else—including human life and prosperity. The dispensation of poison and carnage, doled out to the masses, all with me at the head. There was a layer of separation, sure, but I knew that to be bitter consolation.

Seeing the abject evil with which they were run, I’d attempted to do it my own way. I enacted a plan, one that was far more ethical but less profitable, and was met with backlash from investors and market speculators both. The stock prices plummeted, and my name was dragged through the mud by every business publication and social media tech-bro on Earth.

The public backlash didn’t affect me—my morality was a shield against such criticism. But, when the board informed me if I didn’t stop they’d force me out, I took the decision into my own hands. I walked away, but not before wasting my entire life in the pursuit.

This decision didn’t ease the derision—I was branded a failure, a stain on my father’s legacy. I scoffed at my own hubris.

If I could take it all back—do it over again . . .

Something tapped my hand—a firm, warm touch. I opened my eyes, the world taking on a ghostly blue tinge after having them closed for so long in the sun. Snips was petting my hand as she blew comforting bubbles. I smiled down at her, her company grounding me, pulling me from within. I breathed deep, inhaling the sea spray on the air and focusing on the cool air passing my nostrils as it traveled down my throat, filling my lungs.

I’m being unfair on myself . . .

My therapist’s words echoed in my head again.

“While you’re understandably upset, there’s no reason to keep beating yourself up.”

“That feels like an empty platitude,” I had responded. “What was the point of isolating myself? What was the purpose of all those years wasted, dedicated on studying to be something I despised?”

“Perspective. Who can truly say whether something was good or bad for us? If you had railed against your father’s plans, would you now be sitting before me, lamenting that you never tried?”

She had shook her head, a kind smile on her face. “You did what you did, and now you know what you know—living in the past and replaying long-gone decisions will only bring you misery. All that’s left is to decide where you go from here, Fischer.”

After a long pause, I’d said something that made me feel stupid at the time, but in retrospect, proved prophetic. “You know—I’ve always wanted to try fishing . . .”

My eyes cleared, and the memory faded. A smile came to my face as I realized she’d called me “Fischer” in the replayed conversion—my brain had subconsciously placed it there.

She was right—there’s no point dwelling on my mistakes. Besides, it was another life on another world—none of it matters now . . .

I focused on Sergeant Snips again. She stared at me, her claw still held to my hand, concern in her eye.

“Thank you, Snips.”

I felt a tear welling up, and I blinked it away, casting my eyes out to sea. I pulled her into me, and she snuggled up against my leg, deftly avoiding my soft skin with her hardened spike. I banished the unhappy thoughts, choosing to focus on gratitude instead.

I lay on my own private beach, lazing in the sun with a friend by my side—nary a care in the world.

“I’m so glad you came into my life, you beautiful pirate crab.”

Snips bubbled her agreement, burying further into my side.

Something bumped the line, almost imperceptibly. My eyes shot up to the tip of the rod, where the movement was more visible.

Nibble.

Nibble.

Tug.

And then, it bit.