THE DOGFISH – AVERY HINKS
The pub looked safe when I walked in. Just the bartender behind the counter, and an old man in a sailor’s cap who appeared to be drunkenly holding on to wakefulness. As I took in the beautiful scents of barley and mead, my heart raced. I hadn’t had enough coin to help myself to a drink in more than a week. The bartender’s back was turned, so as I sat down, I opened my mouth to get his attention. That was when a fist as solid as a wooden beam met my cheek, and white light exploded across my vision.
I remember thinking, Damn, should’ve checked the loo.
#
When I could see again, I was outside, on all-fours. It was raining, and the blood from my mouth dripped into a puddle that, per my reflection, kindly showed me my left eye was a slit surrounded by bloated red skin. A foot dug into my stomach, rolling me onto my side in mud.
The two men standing above me were more familiar to me at that point than many I might have called my closest friends—though I suppose at that time of my life I had fewer every day.
“Got our money, or no?” Hosvir said. Even with his thick boot rearing to throw my innards for a loop again, I found his voice admirable, booming deep as a bass drum. It was the kind of voice my grandfather wished I’d grown up to have. The same went for Hosvir’s broad shoulders and tree trunk arms.
I think I squeaked out, “No,” but there’s a good chance it sounded like little more than a syrupy cough.
Hosvir kicked me again, above the waist, and I felt urine fill my trousers. I hadn’t wet myself out of fear since I was a child, but I would argue I didn’t in this case, either. The man simply kicked me in the bladder so hard it squeezed everything out.
The other man, Ludin, drew a knife from his hip as he bent closer to me, then twirled the blade before my eyes. “Get it by summer’s eve, or Hosvir’s foot won’t be the only thing stabbing into your gut,” he said.
I nodded quickly, saying, “I’ll get it! I’ll get it!” only without pronouncing any of the t’s because my tongue had swelled to the size of a sausage.
“You are a coward,” Ludin said, sighing, “but I have to hand it to you: for all the beatings you’ve taken, it’s a wonder I haven’t once seen you cry. Thought for sure that last blow would do it.” Then he spat in my face.
He twirled away his knife as he stood, then walked off with his enormous companion, leaving me shivering in a puddle of mud and my own blood and piss.
“Need some money, I hear, aye?”
I wiped wet hair from my face, and, with my not-swollen eye, looked up to find the old man from the pub standing over me.
“What?” I said, again without the t.
“How much?” he said. He tapped one foot and looked around, as if anxious someone was watching.
“Two hundred kroner,” I muttered, repulsed by how bad it sounded. I wondered if I rolled onto my front, submerging my face in mud, I could drown myself and end it all right there.
“Deal,” said the old man. “Meet me at the docks at dawn, aye?”
I pushed myself to a seat, certain I had heard him wrong, but as I started to ask for clarification, I found he had vanished.
#
I needed the coin, so I walked down to the docks at dawn. Two hours earlier than dawn, actually. Nothing like the looming threat of death to drive someone into absurdly overcompensated punctuality.
The old man was standing near the end of one dock, loading ropes and wooden crates onto a fishing trawler. The swelling in my one eye hadn’t completely come down, but I swore I saw him throw on a fishing hook as tall as a man.
When he noticed me, he waved and called, “Aye!”
The dock rattled under me as I padded across. With a closer look, the old man was stout, not even taller than I, and had a dense, curly white beard and a nose that looked like it had been broken once or twice. I peered into the trawler as he thrust in the final wooden crate, and found I’d seen it correctly: a hook as tall as a man, barbed at the end like for fishing.
“What is it we’re doing?” I asked.
The old man gave an amused but tired laugh, then asked, “Ever heard of the Dogfish?”
I had heard of dogfish before—small, spiney fish with thin fins—but he referred to this as the Dogfish. “No,” I said.
The old man grabbed the edge of the trawler, then pulled himself on. “Aye. I thought not. The Dogfish dwells far in the ocean, past the dreaded Stormgate. I ventured to catch it once before, but—aye, I was a fool, then. It is a journey no man should do alone. Stormgate nearly capsized me before I turned around.”
Absently I started to back away, but I stopped myself. Yes, I had not packed any extra clothes or food—well, the argument could be made I had none to pack—and I had never heard of any place known as the Stormgate, but this old man had offered to pay me everything I needed to get square with Ludin. If I didn’t take it, I was good as dead anyway.
“You mean to catch this Dogfish?” I asked.
“Aye.”
“Why? If you don’t mind.”
“Ye won’t ask that again,” the old man said as he approached the bow, then reached to undo a knot holding the trawler in place.
I thought that was fair enough. For two hundred kroner, what business did I have asking such a question? I grabbed the trawler’s edge, and it teetered as I pulled myself on.
#
It wasn’t long before any sign of land faded behind us. While the old man stood behind the wheel in the cockpit, I sat on a wooden crate near the bow, watching the waves roll past, letting the salty wind toss my hair, and listening to it whip the foresail above. My stomach grumbled.
“We got any food?” I yelled over the wind.
The old man made a questioning look and curled his hand around his ear.
I stood, then stumbled with the slow rock of the trawler as I walked closer. “Do we have any food?”
The old man furrowed his thick white eyebrows. “Aye, we’ll have to catch some.”
He stepped away from the wheel, padded across the deck, and picked up the large anchor near the bow. “Ye know how to fish?” he asked as he tossed the anchor over the edge. The wind muffled its splash.
I shook my head. The old man—not seeming to be in a teaching mood—swung the lid off a crate and produced a thick fishing rod with a three-pronged hook. He swung the rod back over his head, then the line made a thwick as it cast out.
The creak of the trawler’s gentle teetering filled a long silence, then the line went taut, and the rod bent. The old man interspersed iron-grip reeling with using his whole body to yank the line, then he raised a cod as long as my forearm out of the water. It flailed as he pulled the hook from its mouth, then he dropped it on the deck and cast the line out again.
The fish flopped across the deck, and I scrambled to grab it, worried it would flop high enough to make it off the trawler, and I would be robbed of food. Damn thing flopped away from me with the haste of a rabbit, I swear. I gave up, though, as another cod about the same size slapped onto the deck. I stood slowly, eyes on the new cod as it flopped about, then—and I promised you I would not lie, so this is the truth, no matter how it sounds—he pulled yet another cod off the hook and let it fall to the deck. This one was fat and as long as a man’s legs.
“I reckon you’re the best fisherman I’ve seen,” I said.
“Aye,” he said, grimacing as he stared across the endless water, “one must be if one intends to catch the Dogfish.”
#
He left the larger one in a crate in the cabin below-deck, then proceeded to gut and cook the two smaller ones in a pot on a woodstove in the cockpit.
“Never seen anything like that on a trawler,” I said, mesmerized by the apparatus. He used a match to light kindling and contained the heat behind a small iron door. A vent at the back released smoke upward through the cockpit window.
“Nearly starved last time I attempted this venture,” the old man said, stirring the pot with a warped wooden spoon. “One among many mistakes I’ll never make again.”
I peered downstairs into the cabin. “Why not cook the larger one, too?” I wondered if it might go bad sitting in a wooden crate but wasn’t certain enough to voice the concern.
“That one’s for later,” he said.
I assumed he meant for eating. Silly, silly me.
#
After we ate, darkness began to settle. He showed me to a hammock in the cabin—which was more of a fish net cut into the shape of a hammock—where I could sleep.
“You don’t need my help overnight?” I asked, though in truth the idea of resting without the looming worry that Ludin might stab me to death in my sleep sounded wonderous.
“Nay,” said the old man, and for a moment his eyes tracked to the wooden crate he’d stored the large cod in. “Stormgate is a day away. Best thing ye can do until then is ensure ye are well-rested. Please, stay down here until morning.”
I let the hammock envelop me, then was out like a lamp.
#
I awoke to screaming coming from upstairs. It was the voice of the old man, and he sounded in pain—giving long, agonized wails. Had he slipped on the deck and hurt himself? Had we been boarded by pirates that were now stabbing him to death? Had a mad octopus crept on board and began strangling him? I had many good guesses, but I’ll save you the time.
I rolled out of the hammock, then staggered toward the narrow staircase. On my way by, I noticed the crate with the large cod was open, and the cod was no longer inside. I thought—quite reasonably, I believe—that perhaps the old man had decided to cook the cod and was now screaming because he’d burned himself lighting the stove.
The painful screams grew louder as I hurried upstairs, my mind straining to remember how to treat a burn—or if I’d ever learned how to treat a burn at all. What I saw as I arrived at the top of the stairs made me forget the question entirely.
The old man was sitting in the middle of the deck under the blue moonlight, with his trousers around his ankles. His arms were wrapped around the large cod, with its tail pointed up, and its mouth around…well, I reckon I needn’t describe it further. I’ll say that he was thrusting, and with each thrust he yowled one of those painful screams that had brought me up there.
His eyes widened as he noticed me. He pushed the plump fish aside, then tripped over his dropped trousers as he stood, the too-clear moonlight displaying more than I wished to see.
“I told you stay down until morning!” he said as he stormed toward me, one hand waggling an accusatory finger and the other taking an eternity to pull up his trousers.
I waved my hands defensively. “I thought you were—”
The old man’s fist connected with my lower jaw, then I tumbled backwards down the stairs, all the way into the cabin, landing on my back with my feet on the bottom step. The old man trudged down, and I quickly turned on my side, hugging my knees tight against my chest and using them to shield my face.
I heard the old man stop beside me, and I winced, preparing for whatever blow would come next. Probably my back, I thought, but I also thought that if he wanted to, he could get at my face easily enough.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
I opened one eye to peer up at him, not for a second releasing from my well-practiced blockade. His trousers were thankfully back around his waist, but his fists clenched at his sides. “Get it over with,” I said.
“You will not fight back?”
I did not understand the nature of the question, and even as his fists unclenched, I made no move to relax. “You saw what those men did to me behind the pub,” I said, pulling my knees closer to my face. “Please, get it over with.”
The old man sat on a wooden crate, slouching, staring at the floor. “I’ve always said: if ye are no good at fighting, ye had best hope ye are good at taking hits.” He shook his head, as if at himself. “I am sorry. I thought when ye saw me like that, ye would…”
I lifted my head away from my knees. “I would what?”
“Kill me,” he said, then gave a wry chuckle.
I sat up. “Frankly, I was going to crawl back down here and pray I could purge the image from my head, and that you hadn’t seen me.”
“Aye, ye are a good lad.” His voice was suddenly hoarse. He removed his cap and ran a hand through his hair, which was as white, curly, and rigid as his beard. “Ye asked before why I mean to catch the Dogfish. After what ye just saw, I feel it may be necessary to answer that question. To, if ye will, preserve your trust in me for this venture. Do ye agree?”
“I agree,” I said.
“Ye see, the ocean is a lonely place for a man, but I was not always lonely. I had a wife, and together we had a son. One summer, after saving enough coin for this trawler, I planned a family trip to the legendary Isles of Flame. I believed I had pinpointed their precise location. My wife—Runa was her name—always wished to sit under the everlasting light said to exist there. I can still see the look in her eyes when I…”
The man closed his eyes, inhaled deeply. I didn’t know whether I should comfort him, leave him alone, or prepare myself for another knuckle to the face. Thankfully, he continued.
“Anyway, I knew we needed to pass through the Stormgate, and I made that clear to my wife. I could afford the trawler; however, I could not afford to hire a hand to help control the sails through the storm, and my son was only five at the time. I told her she would have to help me. Let me tell ye, I have never seen someone work so hard at a task.” His eyes floated to the ceiling, considering, then he nodded. “Yes, I would say Runa held the foresail with the very strength of the Gods.
“Once through the Stormgate, we celebrated. It would be smooth sailing for only another two weeks before reaching the Isles of Flame. But aye…how naïve I was.”
“The Dogfish,” I said.
“Aye. The next day, as we coasted on still waters—still as glass, I tell ye—the trawler began to shake. I thought maybe we had scraped over a rock—given how undisturbed the water was, it was easy to believe we’d found a suddenly shallow spot—and instructed Runa to check the bow while I went down to ensure no water was flooding into the cabin. The moment I stepped off that bottom step, I heard my wife shriek, and the floor slanted forward. I ran upstairs and saw something the likes of which I had only seen in storybooks.”
“Dogfish,” I said again.
The old man nodded. “Only its head was on the boat, but that was enough for a good look. I’d place it at thrice the size of the largest shark I’ve seen. It had a wide, circular mouth with more rows of teeth than I could count, and gaping, pitch-black eyes. When I reached the deck, it had already bit off my wife’s arm. I yelled for my son—who was crying—to remain in the cockpit, then as I stepped onto the downhill ramp that was the deck, the Dogfish chomped another bite, this time taking Runa whole.
“I dove onto my belly, grabbing a harpoon as I slid, but once I was halfway down the deck, the Dogfish retreated, tipping the boat upright and leaving a splash that soaked me head to toe. As I wiped the water from my eyes, I found myself in a salty pool of my wife’s blood, but there was no time to dwell. I feared the Dogfish would return and take me, or worse, my son. I turned the trawler around and headed straight for the Stormgate.”
“The Stormgate!” I said. “But you said—how did you—”
Tears streamed down the old man’s cheeks.
“Oh,” I said, arriving at the conclusion myself.
“My son tried his best, he did. But the Stormgate does not forgive for merely trying. He almost held on the whole way, too, but as he pulled the foresail against one particular gust of wind, it lifted him off the deck, threw him in the water. I had no time to guess where he landed, to even think about jumping in after him, because as soon as that sail was loose, the storm spun the trawler like a mill. I managed to get hold of the foresail myself, manning it along with the mainsail, two ropes in each hand. Good thing I was near the edge of the Stormgate, because a moment longer and I might have been ripped in two.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. Then, regrettably—though I was a tad curious—I asked, “Were you thinking about your wife up there on the deck, when you were…with the cod?”
“Aye,” he said in a grumble, and closed his eyes like it hurt.
“You mentioned you tried to hunt the Dogfish once yourself, though. Did you go back?”
“Twice I did. But the Stormgate turned me away both times. This time,” and he looked deep into my eyes, deep into my soul I believe, and nobody has come close to looking at me in such a way since, “I am prepared to do whatever it takes to catch and kill the Dogfish.”
“We will get through the Stormgate,” I said, and pounded a fist triumphantly on the floor. “I promise you, we will.”
“Not if ye are unrested, we won’t,” he said, then nodded to the hammock as he stood. “Please, go back to sleep.”
#
I slept until midday, but I would not have been able to tell, because as I awoke, only darkness came from upstairs. I rolled hazily out of the hammock, then stumbled with the gentle rock of the trawler as I walked up to the deck.
Clouds black as midnight filled the sky.
“We’re a few hours away,” said the old man. I was so entranced by the sky that I hadn’t noticed him on my right, behind the wheel in the cockpit.
“A few hours,” I repeated, mostly because I didn’t believe it. The Stormgate stood straight ahead, a misty block stretching across the ocean into oblivion, and up to those dark clouds—which, above the Stormgate, rippled with gold lightning.
“Its size makes it appear closer than it is,” said the old man, appearing to sense my scepticism. “Once it’s right in front of us, it will be so tall ye won’t be able to see the top. Not that ye will be looking up. With the Stormgate, if ye mean to survive, it is best to only look forward.”
I nodded slowly, and I imagine my eyes were bulging out of my head staring at those clouds. “What must I do?” I asked.
“I will man the rear mast, and ye will man the mast at the front. I cannot give more advice than to grab hold of the sail’s ropes and pull with everything ye have, and do not for a second let your feet leave the trawler.”
All I could picture was the old man’s son, five years old, being flung into the storm-ridden ocean. “I will try to be as good as Runa,” I said.
I wasn’t sure how that comment would go over, but the old man smirked, his beard rising on his cheeks. “If ye are half as good as her, we’ll be fine.”
#
It started with light rain, swollen droplets spaced out on the deck, but quickly escalated to torrential downpour, pinging against the trawler in sheets. I gave the old man an expectant look.
“Position yourself at the mast,” he said, eyes forward like a mountain cat creeping on prey.
By the time I reached the front mast, I looked as if I’d gone for a swim, and the rain was so thick I could not see five feet in front of me. I thought that would be the worst of it as I took a rope in each hand, staring up at the wavering foresail, but that was calm compared to everything that came next.
I heard the old man roar over the rain, “Here it comes!”
The rain switched from coming down to coming sideways. Wind yanked me forward as if the ropes were tied to two packhorses veering in opposite directions. The only thing that stopped me from smacking my face on the mast was the trawler tipping backwards. I fell, landing on my shoulder, but kept the ropes tight against my chest. As I wobbled up, the trawler teetered left, right, forward, and back disorderedly. I fought to pull the ropes tight, but a wave lapped over the trawler’s edge, knocking me down and submerging me in water. As the water dissipated and my vision cleared, thunder bellowed and lighting stabbed into the ocean on my right, exploding a splash that reached over the trawler and dunked me again.
I coughed water as I attempted to stand, then fell flat on my arse as the trawler tipped left. One rope nearly slipped from my hand, and my heart stopped as I tightened my grip. Lightning plunged from the sky up ahead, and I thought that if it were to hit the trawler, it would cut it clean in half. Instead, it hit the ocean, and a wave took the trawler head-on, tilting it so the bow pointed straight up. I dangled, certain the boat would capsize, but it lurched back down fast, lobbing more splashes onto the deck. Wind caught the foresail again, ripping me sideways despite my defensive pull. I saw the ocean approaching fast before I realized what was about to happen, then braced myself.
The toe of my boot catching on the mast was the only thing that stopped me from plummeting into the ocean. I panted, inhaling water as I smacked down on the deck, in disbelief that I still had my life. Instinct took over, and my mind narrowed on one thing, the only thing I knew to do in a situation such as this, something to this day I can’t believe I hadn’t done sooner: sit down, close my eyes, and take the hits.
With my toe still hooked around the mast, I pulled myself closer. I squeezed my legs around the base of the mast as I sat up and wrapped the ropes around my wrists until they couldn’t wrap any further. I hugged the mast, digging my hands under opposite armpits, and pressed my cheek against the mast’s cold metal.
I held on as wind, rain, and waves pummeled me from every direction. I did not dare look, as that might only distract me. I focused on the sound of the foresail, thrashing above in the wind, because if I could still hear it, that meant I was doing a good job. A chorus of deafening thunder boomed, and icy rain, waves, and splashes alike cut my ears, cheeks, and hands. My mouth tasted like salt, and my nostrils smelled like blood. I held on even as the wind started to die, even as the boat started to teeter rather than fully tip, even as the rain softened to a patter, and the thunder began to fade behind.
“We did it, lad.”
My eyes felt like they were full of needles as I blinked them open. The old man stood on the other side of the mast, dripping wet, his beard flattened against his neck, and his tunic torn from shoulder to chest on one side. I think I managed a one-second smile before I vomited into my lap. It was straight salt water; I must have swallowed enough to support a small school of fish.
The old man laughed—a deep chuckle that rose from his belly and continued until his shoulders bounced and he clutched his side. I laughed with him, standing on stiff legs.
“It was like you said! I took the hits and it worked! I’m not a coward!” I yelled these things like a child who’s just won a game of checkers. I ran around the mast and hugged the old man. He returned it promptly, slapping his rough hands on my back.
As I released, still laughing, I said, “You know, it’s just occurred to me we haven’t shared our names.”
He grabbed my hand and shook it. “Guthrum,” he said. Then I told him mine.
#
Despite our victory over the Stormgate, Guthrum then retreated to the deck with a distraught, somewhat gloomy expression. He mumbled angry phrases at himself as he unwound ropes and fastened them on the boom—the device that cranes off the boat and usually holds large fishing nets.
“Need any help?” I asked.
“Man the cockpit,” he said. He sounded frustrated, annoyed. I figured he was just reliving old grief with the Dogfish getting close, so I did as I was told. He must have noticed my disappointment—I genuinely wished to help—because once I positioned myself behind the wheel, he added, “I have one more task for ye. Sit tight.”
There wasn’t much manning of the cockpit to do, as within an hour of leaving the Stormgate, the sun re-emerged, and the wind fully quit, making—as Guthrum had aptly described—the ocean look like glass. Unlike what one would expect from such still water, though, it was not clear, but rather a dark blue that approached black in some places. As deep as a starry night sky.
Guthrum strung a thick rope over the boom, then tied the hook that was tall as a man on the end, laying it flat with plenty of slack behind. At the top of the hook, he tied on a smaller rope, then made a wide loop that spread out on deck far past the hook. It was a kind of fishing setup I had never seen, but I supposed it made sense for something as apparently huge as the Dogfish. I could picture the creature biting that hook, and as Guthrum reeled it in, the loop tightening around its neck for extra support. From another wooden crate, he produced a harpoon gun with a harpoon long as a battle spear. He set that down by the front mast, then waved for my help.
As I approached him, he said, “Need to gage the size of this loop. Ye mind standing in the middle?”
I thought nothing of it and planted my feet—still soaked from the storm—in the center of the loop. I glanced at the circle of rope around me, nodding my approval. “Anything else we must do to prepare?”
“Aye, one thing,” Guthrum said. “The bait.”
“Bait?” I asked. When I looked back to Guthrum, he was hovering his hand over a leaver on the boom. He pulled it. I heard slips of rope all around me and saw the slack rope by the hook shoot to the pully above. Before I could even think to jump aside, the loop was tight around my ankles. My feet swept out from under me, and I flipped upside down. When it was done, I was dangling halfway between the pulley and deck with the massive hook hanging against my body.
I flailed my arms and swore hateful, putrid phrases I dare not repeat. I squealed and jerked like a hog being corralled as Guthrum caught one of my wrists, then the other, and pulled them behind my back to tie them together.
“I told ye, lad,” he said as he yanked the knot tight, “I will do whatever it takes to catch the Dogfish. On one of my attempts, I did make it through the Stormgate alone. But when I found the beast, nothing I tried brought me close to catching it. I remembered how it gulped my wife in one bite and realized it must take only one kind of bait…I am sorry.” He choked on the last part, and I could not see him, but I am certain he was crying.
I continued to curse and struggle against my restraints as Guthrum returned to the cockpit. My struggling was no use, though; those knots could’ve held an angry bull with fire poking its arse. And what else would I expect? He was the best fisherman I’d ever seen.
Eventually he emerged from the cockpit, grabbed his harpoon gun, then positioned himself next to the boom. It was Dogfish time.
The boom creaked as it swung me over open water. I stared down into the infinite depths, then held my breath as I lowered. Before I was within five feet of the water, I saw something shift below. A dark circular shape, quickly becoming larger and larger.
“I see it!” I screamed. “I see it!”
Guthrum stopped lowering me, then I heard his feet stomp around the deck. The mass continued to grow. Every time I was sure it would stop, it only doubled in size. As it emerged, I shrieked so hard I expelled all the wind from my lungs.
Violent splashes breached the pristine surface all around it. It shot toward me so fast I only glimpsed it for a second—smooth silver-black scales, eyes like bulbous pockets of darkness, six rows of teeth running the circle of its jaw—before I was in its mouth. I winced, ready to be dug into by those teeth, but the fish came up so fast I whizzed right past them.
The sticky, membranous walls of its throat squished against me, then I heard a fleshy squelch, followed by a pained roar that rumbled up from below. The hook had sunk into its throat, and blood oozed out around it. The light coming from above suddenly vanished, and I knew that meant the Dogfish had closed its mouth.
The walls of its throat continued to constrict, and—unlike any decision I’d made prior—I decided that if I wished to survive, I would need to fight my way out.
My feet were still tied at the top of the hook. I flexed at my knees, hip, and spine, drawing myself up, my face sliding along the mucus-slicked wall. I saw the furthest-back row of teeth and swung my arms back so the rope tied around my wrists would catch on one. These teeth were long as kitchen knives, but jagged rather than sharp. Thank the gods it did not manage to bite me even slightly, because if it had, I would have come out the other side in rags. I moved the rope up and down along the tooth. I felt one knot give, then another. As my hands freed, the tooth caught and sliced my right pointer finger, leaving only a string of skin to hold it on.
I could not dwell on that. I turned myself upside-down in the Dogfish’s throat and gripped the shaft of the hook with both hands. Distantly I felt a heavy smack rattle through the beast, but I did not let it throw me off. I dug my knees into the base of its mouth, then pulled the hook with all my might. The sound of ripping flesh echoed through the tight space, and light poured into its throat along with a stream of blood. I grabbed the top of the rip and pulled myself down and through. I rolled onto the deck covered in blood and slime.
Red strings of mucus dangled off me as I stood, confused. I had expected to drop into the water, or at least fall to the deck, not roll out. The trawler was tilted leftward, and half the Dogfish was slumped over the side. It lay motionless with the long harpoon sticking out of its head. A pair of boots also stuck out from under its hulking body.
“Guthrum!” I said, scrambling toward him. I grabbed his ankles and heaved, blood spurting from my mangled finger. He moved maybe an inch—if he moved at all. After I don’t know how many more tugs, he finally slid out. His eyes were a glossy grey and his nose was freshly broken. The Dogfish must have landed on him so hard it knocked him unconscious, then, with his face pressed into its skin, suffocated him.
You might think I felt catharsis looking at the corpse of this man who, minutes earlier, had strung me up to face my doom. But this was a man who went to the extreme to confront lifelong grief and died in the very moment he could have seen it through. I don’t know if I had ever cried in my life up to that point—perhaps when I was a boy, but I honestly couldn’t tell you. I am certain, though, that right then I sat back against the Dogfish and wept like a newborn.
#
“Did you still get your money?” Timon asked.
“That’s what you took from my story?” The old man rubbed a hand over his tired face.
“Ignore him,” said Phaia, nudging her younger brother on the arm. “What did you do next?”
With a dejected sigh, the old man clasped his hands on the table, displaying the empty space left by the finger he’d lost to the Dogfish. “All I could think to do was ensure he ended up in the same place as his family. I took him in my arms—heavy bastard, he was—and threw him off the trawler.”
“How do we know you really fought this Dogfish?” Utus said. His voice startled Phaia—she hadn’t known he was here, too. She turned to face her burly friend and found several others had also gathered to listen, even the tavern’s cooks, who she’d never seen come close to leaving the kitchen. After clearing his throat, Utus added, “I mean, did you take one of its teeth for proof?”
“That’s just it,” said the old man, shaking his head. “Damn thing was still alive!” Gasps filled the room, and the old man chuckled. “That was my reaction, too. After throwing Guthrum overboard, I felt the trawler swivel, then I spun to find the creature’s head slapping the deck. I fetched the knife Guthrum had used to gut the cod, then I cut the rope connecting the Dogfish to the boom. It slid off the deck with a splash, and the trawler lurched upright.
“My heart hammering, I ran to the cockpit. Then,” and he gazed out the window, toward the eternal gold sunset bleeding through the palm trees and cabins, “I came here.”
“Would you ever go back for it?” Phaia asked.
The old man nodded and frowned. “I would need a helping hand, but nobody ever seems willing. Can’t for the life of me figure out why.” He looked to the small gathering his tale had drawn in. “Any takers?”
AVERY HINKS
I am a graduate student from Ontario, Canada with no prior publications. When I am not reading or writing, I like to go hiking--that is, when it's not freezing cold.