this is from way back.

It's difficult to read this english up to down but that is the was this goofy stuff works. This is the finale of something mistaken for a novel-in-progress from earlier times. I actually have much of the front end of a big story written but I 'm a lazy puke pile of rancid chicken shit and can't seem to get past myself and find some kind of other motivation to finish it besides just myself struggling to complete one thing in my life. jesus, I am tired of reading my own words. I see it and how much needs changed and become overwhelmed by the mind-fuck(I tried to think of a different modifier but could not, none replicate the force of that word) it can be to choose ideas and images and all that other crap I want one day to end up in a piece of writing that I do.

Epilogue

Calvin sat on the Arkansas bank of the river and looked at the Memphis skyline a half mile across. The pyramid, a few miles north started the jagged line of steel, concrete, and glass that ran down to the trio of bridges a half mile south of Calvin. The thick brown water swirled and gurgled in front of him and he thought of diving in and being dragged under by the legendary Mississippi undertow. Every year someone would get sucked under the river and maybe show up miles downstream.

Calvin jerked the pole back and he could feel the triple hook sink into the fishes jaw. The rod bent over and the drag whined as the fish swam for its life. Calvin knew it was going straight to the bottom where thousands of years of humanity was stuck into the mud. Boats, people, cars, trash, DDT, shells, boots, cans, bottles, planes, bales of cotton, cannons, heroes, cowards, and everything else that made history was being preserved by the deep water. The fish was trying to find some kind of cover to get away from the triple barbs in its mouth among all the refuse of mankind.

As soon as reel slowed down its backwards spin Calvin started to pull and wind the fish in. HE pulled and worked the fish for about half an hour when he could see the water swirl around its sleek brown skin. Then he saw a paddle move the water around and the hook sticking through it. He realized he caught a spoon-bill, a rare breed of catfish. Calvin couldn’t see the rest of the fish but he could tell that it was huge, upwards of sixty pounds. Then he saw the tail pushing water as hard as it could and almost yelled at a the sight of a five foot catfish. Calvin reached for his net when “Snap!” He watched the front foot of his pole fly into the water and swore not at his loss but in sheer amazement of it all. The big fish went down to the bottom of the river, dragging the stick of graphite behind it. Two hooks went through his bill and would take a while to get out. The fish rested in the mud for awhile and then continued its never-ending journey for food. A Volkswagen Beetle sat sunk in the mud to the windows. The fish swam through it and the rod caught the roof, after a brief struggle he had snapped the line that had tangled around the rod and swam only with the two hooks sticking through his mouth and the third hanging below them catching nothing but water, sticks, and a boot. The fish had the boot stuck to its head for almost a week when it got wedged between a rock and the drive shaft of a paddle-wheeler. He struggled to break free but the two hooks in his mouth made the fight almost impossible. With one last shake and flare of his head he ripped his mouth from the steel barbed bait hooks and left the boot for some poor fisherman to catch.