Until The Fish

Erik had been waiting his whole life to go ice fishing with Grandfather. Grandfather had been ice fishing since before Erik was born. Since before Erik's father was born. Since before the oldest tree in the village was anything more than a seed thinking about becoming a tree.

Or so it seemed.

They left before dawn. This was important. Grandfather had said so. The ice was best before dawn. The fish were best before dawn. Everything worth having happened before dawn. Erik had never been awake before dawn. Dawn was earlier than he'd expected.

The lake was frozen solid and perfectly white and completely silent in the way that only ice is silent — like the whole world had agreed to hold its breath.

Grandfather found the spot without hesitating. Not this spot or that spot. This spot. The same spot every year since before the oldest tree was a seed.

He cut the hole. Erik watched. The ice was thick. The axe was old. The hole appeared anyway dark and perfect like a small window into somewhere else.

They sat. They dropped their lines. They waited.

"Now," said Grandfather, "we wait." "For how long?" said Erik. Grandfather looked at him the way very old people look at very young people who have asked exactly the right question. "Until," said Grandfather.

Erik looked at the hole. The hole said nothing.

Then Grandfather spoke.

He spoke about Erik's great-great-grandmother who had fished this same hole in a winter so cold the snow turned blue. He spoke about the year the fish were so plentiful they filled every barrel in the village and still kept coming. He spoke about the year there were no fish at all and everyone sat on the ice anyway because the sitting was also the point.

Erik listened. The hole listened too.

Grandfather spoke about his own grandfather who had taught him this spot the same way he was teaching Erik now — sitting on the same ice over the same dark water dropping a line into the same cold deep.

"Did he catch anything?" said Erik. Grandfather smiled. "He caught me," he said. "Sitting still long enough to listen."

Erik looked at the hole. The dark water beneath it went down and down and down. All the way to the bottom. All the way to the cold quiet place where the fish were thinking their slow fish thoughts.

The line moved. Just once. Just slightly.

Erik's hands went tight. "Grandfather —" "I see it," said Grandfather. He didn't move fast. He moved the way the stories moved — steady and sure and like he'd done this ten thousand times before. Because he had.

The fish came up. Silver and cold and real through the hole in the ice into the grey morning air.

Erik held it. It was heavier than he'd expected. Fish always are.

Grandfather looked at it. Then at Erik. "Your great-great-grandmother," he said, "caught one exactly that size. From this exact hole. In the winter the snow turned blue."

Erik looked at the fish. He looked at the hole. He looked at the ice spreading white and silent in every direction holding all its cold old stories just below the surface.

He put the fish back. He didn't know why. He just did.

Grandfather watched it disappear into the dark water. He said nothing. He just nodded once slowly the way you nod at something that was always going to happen exactly this way.

They sat a while longer. The ice held them. The stories settled around them like snow. The hole waited patiently for the next question.

Erik didn't ask how long.

He already knew. Until.