An Unreliable Narrator
Anthony Naples
I asked permission to fish a small spring creek in Pennsylvania
Watercress and forget-me-nots, limestone and wild browns with butter-yellow bellies
The stream slips between parallel mountain ridges. The hills lean in, keeping watch.
A frowning father and an old country doctor dressed in hemlock and shadows
I get the feeling that they are there to make sure the boys don't get in
I climbed in somehow, without them noticing
I'm on the water and I don't see a road, I don't even hear a road, I don't see any houses
The occasional rumble in the distance. Maybe thunder, maybe a freight-train
It is an envelope of water and verdure, there is no revolution in the air, not here
A small riffle leading into a run, that's where I'll sink this cress-bug
A nice tuck-cast, the fly curves under and plips into the water before the leader and line hit
The better to get to the bottom
I release the flipping creature that I've tied into, she slips under the watercress
For a brief time we shared a world. In that moment, her eyes reflected my fictions, my flaws, my desires,
my chaos and my truths