Fishing

I'm running along the Han River at seven in the morning and a boat is moving to the shore just ahead of me.  It drifts out of the fog toward the bank where an ambulance waits for it.  Two paramedics get out to meet the boat and you can see there is not much urgency about them.  Their ambulance lights are on only to warn cyclists to go easy.  The siren is off and the tools of their trade are packed away.  A few old men on bikes stop their morning ride to stand nearby and learn more about the catch of the day.  

I have been running up and down the river for a while, but this is the first time I do it early in the morning.  You have to get out of bed in the morning.

At night there are fisherman and I notice that they are not here this morning.  I miss them.  Not that they usually wave to me or anything.  And not that I ever see any of them reeling in a big one.  They're just another presence.

Usually they set themselves up in a spot with six fishing rods all in a row, two meters apart.  When I see that I think how nobody who feels confident about catching a fish, does that.  You must leave the house with six rods in your arms thinking, "well I probably won't come back with anything much but at least I'll be throwing everything at them."  I just hope they put different baits on different hooks, for variety, so the fish come along and go, "hmm, snail, no, not today.  Oh look theres an earthworm on that line, that's more like it, I'll just have me some of that."

Or perhaps casting so many lines in the one spot is a tactic to corner the fish.  A hapless fish comes along and dodges one line and another is ahead so he turns left to get out of the way of that and then gets snared by a third?

What would happen if Santiago in the old man and the sea threw six lines in off his little boat?  And a few big marlins bit all at once?  He was a proud fisherman who never cut rope and even with six big ones all at once, I still don't think he'd write any of them off.  One fish would pull his boat north for a while and then the other would pull him the other way.  In the end his boat would be ripped apart.  And then he'd really have to decide which line to hang onto.

The boat docks and I am twenty metres away.  It's a police boat and the three men in it look pretty serious.  I decide that when I get up there, I am not going to slow down and gawk, and I am surprised these cyclists have.  I really want to look, though.  It is in my instinct somehow.  But I say no to that instinct, no, you're above that, I say, and I look into the middle distance like I'm serious about my running.

These cyclists are the same ones who ring their bell at me when I'm running in their lane instead of the walking lane where people are not walking.  These are the people who stop on this river for one thing - 7-11, where there are hot noodles and cool alcohol.  If you took away the fact that it was cold, and that there was a police boat and an ambulance exchanging cargo and just looked at them, you'd think it was sunset on a beach and they were contemplating the horizon.  Because they were the only ones here that didn't look grave.  They looked just how I would look if one of those fisherman were pulling in a big one.

The paramedics jump the railing and climb down to the boat.  The people on the boat have obviously ordered them to do that.  I wonder if it is a seniority thing because these paramedics are clearly younger.  Or if the police on the boat say, "guys, we caught this and prepared it and brought it all the way to you, you come down here and get rid of it."

I pass them just as they make it to the boat, and I don't look back.

Some time later I pass this spot as I head for home and there are no more bikes or vans of boats, or signs that life had taken pause on the Han River.  And there are no more fishermen.