The Fisherman

Out on a calm sea, a fisherman sits in a small rowboat casting his line. Patiently he waits until a bite nearly rips the pole from his hands. Lurching, he grasps the pole and begins to pull. Furiously he battles against the creature on the other end holding the line at times to catch his breath. After a few minutes, he sees a large dark mass rising to the surface. The tension suddenly gives way as, erupting from the water, a large toothy shark stares him in the eyes.

The man pressed his back against the opposite side of the tiny boat, terrified that the shark would capsize him and take him for a meal. Much to his surprise though, the shark began to speak. “You injured me. There is a hook stuck in my mouth. Take it out.” 

“If I reach in you will bite off my hand,” replied the fisherman. “I can cut the line though and let you go if you promise not to hurt me.”

“You have already hurt me and now you are worried about being hurt yourself? If you cut the line I will still be in pain. Right your wrong and remove the hook.” 

“But if you bite off my hand I can no longer fish. This is how I feed myself and my family. I cannot be without my hand.”

“Then climb into my mouth and take out the hook from inside.” said the shark as he opened his mouth wide.

“I cannot do that either,” said the fisherman. “You can swallow me whole and take me away. Then I would lose my life and my family would never know what happened to me. It would break their hearts.”

The shark frustrated and in pain, “You have given two excuses now as to why you cannot right the wrong you have done to me. Both of those could happen but if you do not remove the hook I will haunt you in the seas. I swim faster than you can row. I will chase you and rock your boat. I will eat all of the fish and leave you none to catch. I can throw you into the water at any time. I can make you live in fear of me. I can place this curse upon you. So decide now if you will take the risk and fix the pain you have brought me.”

The fisherman pondered on this for a minute weighing his options. “Should I lose my hand I will have my life and can find something else to do. I can then still go out to the sea which I love. Should I lose my life in the belly of the shark I would lose everything. If I do nothing, I can never return to the sea and experience something I once loved.”

“I will reach in and remove the hook,” the fisherman decided. “Please do not take my hand but if you do I feel this will be the lesser of the damages.”

The shark thrashed its tail and said, “Very well.” It opened its mouth wide and the man reached in following the string to where the hook was lodged. And lodged it was. The fisherman realized he could not push it through and snip it. He would have to rip it out. He told the shark as much and said, “I am sorry this is going to hurt more than it normally would.” 

The fisherman counted to three and, with a great yank, he pulled the hook free and collapsed back into the boat. Just missing the shark's teeth slamming together. The shark whimpered in pain as the man said, “I knew you were going to try and bite my hand.” 

The shark replied, “Stupid man, if I did want to take your hand I had more than enough time to do so. But where would that have left me? With a hook still in my mouth causing me pain? No, I held back as long as I could despite how much it hurt when you ripped it out. I saw what you thought about before you decided to take it out. You thought only of the worst I could do and not about what you had already done. You never paused to think, ‘The shark could just want the pain to go away and will not hurt me at all.’ I never planned or wanted to hurt you cause I see you. I see your paranoia and mistrust. I see your refusal to accept responsibility. I pity you. And in that pity, I realized there is no pain that I can inflict that you do not already inflict on yourself.”

With that, the shark lunged away from the boat and swam deep into the dark waters below. The fisherman sat for a minute and looked over at his catch. He decided that he had done enough fishing for the day and began to row back. Shortly he arrived at the dock and tied off his boat. He bundled the fish from his catch and began walking home.

He approached a small shack barely a comfortable size for one person and walked in. Inside he started a fire in a stone oven and put a pot with some water over it. He cleaned the fish and added them to the pot along with some vegetables. He sat and ate the stew alone in the shack. After he was done he lay down alone in his bed. 

And as he reflected on the day he began to cry because he realized the shark had known all along that he was lying about having a family to support. He cried on as the night grew deeper because the shark had been right about who was to blame and who would cause the fisherman the most pain. The man cried himself to sleep that night as he had done on so many other nights before.