Fishing 2

Back then it was slightly warmer. The sun shone a little stronger, and waters shimmered more gently, with the breeze but a coy sigh that lasted but a moment, which was still longer than how long it took them to realize their mutual bond.

Who knows how they ended up there together in the first place?

As for him, he had been somewhat of a regular visitor. He came a few times in his youth with his father who donned a gruffy look whenever they made the trip. The first few visits he enjoyed in his naive curiosity and ignorance of the going-ons around him. As he grew into adolescence he began to notice that there was a reason for his dad's gruffy look and strong smell of liquor. The lousy driving was also explainable. Most of all, the broken dishes in the kitchen that somehow came about every fishing trip didn't seem so coincidental. Not to mention the bruises, scratches, and the awful noise at night. Perhaps it's because he began staying up longer as he aged. He's never noticed it all before. Then one day, he just refused to come along on the trip. Instead, he left on a trip on his own.

As for her, that summer was the first time she visited the place at all. She fancied her eerie hobby of making a grand escapade twice every year, leaving everything behind for a day. Because she kept the getaway time to one day she saw some limitations in her choices of destinations. Hence once in a while she would bend the rule for really far locations. But most of the time she found a day was long enough for random trips as there were plenty of unexplored spots nearby. The night before, she made herself a lunchbox with two sandwiches and an apple. She got up early in the morning, fixed herself a bowl of cereal, and took off. She wasn't much of a breakfast person, but always made certain she started the day off on a full stomach whenever she made that biannual getaway. With a light white top and washed jeans, she was off to the train station.

The train station that awaited him on his first trip alone was more packed than he'd expected. After all, it was hardly sunrise, but people were already bustling about, ready to go somewhere. Work, home, vacation. Wherever. All sorts of feelings and thoughts rushed through his head like the mesh of the crowd weaving through each other, then as each batch cleared out with the trains, so did his apprehension. He'd been smart and old enough to leave home with enough cash to buy a ticket and perhaps a few meals, but that didn't seem so smart as he sat blank-faced on the bench. Sure, he'd thought about this before. Still, the fear that he had taken the wrong step never failed to keep him nailed on the bench and wondering if he should go back, and if his drunk father would come fetch him for another supposedly therapeutic fishing trip. Then he remembered all the bruises, scratches, and awful noise at night. And the blood. Then he got on the next train.