Refraction

 I caught a fish when I was kid, in a stocked pond. I think it was at the Izaak Walton League. I took it home and put it into a can of water. My dad said to stir the water with my finger so there would be enough oxygen for the fish. I figured that it wasn't much good having a fish in a can of water that I had to stir with my finger so I decided to let the fish go. We walked a block or so to the St. Joseph River and I emptied the can into the water. The fish sat there in the shallows for a moment, and then it was gone with that sort of metallic swoosh sound that water makes. I wondered a bit if it was happier in the river than it had been in the pond. There probably wasn't much chance of it getting caught again living in the river. A few people fished in there, not many. You could catch carp. Carp is a bottom feeding fish, not much good to eat because what it eats isn't so tasty. That fish I caught, it would have the run of a river but would there be as much for it to eat? I didn't know if they fed the fish in the pond. They might. Or maybe the fish fed each other. It's that kind of world, under the water. But the river was freer than the pond if having more space is being more free and if being in space that is not where it was planned for it to be is being more free. Of course that fish had not planned to live in the pond or to live in the river. But once in the river and seeing he was in the river, he decided to take to it. It was a good deal better than being in a can. I could let go of the fish, meaning my possession of it, because I had removed from man's hold a creature who had no particular connection to humanity except the need of some man to own the space and time of fish in general without caring about them on an individual basis. I had released it to a destiny more in keeping with a fish, to my way of thinking. Except of course I didn't consciously think any of that, which was appropriate at that stage of my life. Over complicated ideas don't make for a happy childhood. But what I have thought about from time to time was that instant just after I let it go, when the fish sat in the river for a moment, taking stock, and if it were human you could imagine the state of emotion he'd be experiencing. A kind of shock, maybe, because things that are trapped aren't used to getting out without some sort of repercussion. That moment is kind of like waiting for the axe to fall, a willingness to go along with whatever fate will deliver, whether it's a piece of cake or the knife that was brought along to cut it with. You have to cooperate to get hooked in the first place, I understand that. But that fish was hungry, and the worm looked awful good. It's not always easy to see what looks good that is going to get you hauled over the side of the boat and put in a can. That fish could not have been expected to understand that there's boats and people and fishing poles and lines and things that look like worms that aren't and a medium that you can't breathe in or move through so you flop around in it till someone gashes your mouth and hangs you from the side of the boat with a couple others so that all you can do is hang and stare at them and get used to the idea that you're not free anymore and never will be again. Big difference between that and being in the river. You may be hungry and scared and lost at times but you aren't hanging off the boat waiting for dinner time to come around.

From Refraction, A Play