Some Fishy Talk

                I first saw him – or it- while working in my garden.  It was a bloody hot day, the mercury tipping at 102 degrees.  I knew that at my age, 78, I should not be out working in the July midday sun.  But like a lot of stubborn old duffers, I thought I could tough it out.

                I was using my favorite hoe with the long green handle to weed around the string bean plants.  I was wearing an old tattered straw hat and the sweat was pouring off my forehead into my right eye, blinding me.  Consequently, every few seconds I grabbed the handkerchief in my back pocket and wiped the salty sweat from off my forehead and around my eyes.  To make matters more uncomfortable, my back was aching where I had three disks fussed back in 1962.  Every once in awhile the pain would grab me and nearly put me to my knees, but I just had a few feet to go and I would be finished weeding the string beans – so I forced myself on, telling myself when I finished this row I would call it a day.    

                Some weeds, like morning glory and redroot, manage to anchor themselves so close to the bean plant that they are protected from the hoe, which necessitates bending over and pulling the damn things out of the ground by hand.  The rows are about 75 feet long and it seemed as though I had to bend over about every third plant.  That’s a lot of bending.  Suddenly, while straightening up to give my aching back a rest I became very dizzy and nauseated, so much so I thought I was going to pass out.

                Now, before I tell you about him – that is the fish – I should bring you up to date as to the geography of our 12 acre farm and garden.  The garden part of the property is a full acre split in half by a little lane that leads from the house at the south end of the property to where the barn and my wife’s wholesale flower shop is located at the north end of the upper garden.  The rows in the lower garden are a good 150 feet long and comprise mostly of sweet corn, pumpkins, two rows of dried beans (during the winter a pot of ham and beans hits the spot) concord grapes, and a single row each of status (a cut flower) and potatoes.  To the south of the lower garden is an old milk shed built of ties, a chicken coop, the peacock pen and a pasture housing three steers, two calves and Popeye, our lama.  His left eye is deformed and pops out.

                All the farm equipment for our 45 HP Massy Ferguson tractor is stored north of the flower shop and barn.  The west portion of our property is our five acre alfalfa field.  Surrounding the garden on the east, south and west are tall Chinese Elm and Popular trees.   Being an old geezer I have strategically placed in three shady spots chairs where I can rest.  Fortunately, when I became dizzy I was close to my favorite resting spot, the northwest corner of the upper garden. 

                 I staggered over and plopped myself down in the old metal lawn chair and leaned back.   I had a gallon thermos jug of cool water beside the chair.  I reached down and took a long drink.  I then hung my straw hat on the hoe handle and splashed water over my forehead and face.  It was then, out of the corner of my eyes, I saw something rustling in the bushes about ten feet to my right.  It didn’t think too much of it because there are a lot of magpies, quail and mourning doves that frequent the trees.  But then, like a streak of lightening the thing in the bushes flashed across the upper garden, through the popular trees and up over the flower shop.  It didn’t even slow down to make a 90 degree turn.  It happened so fast I couldn’t tell what it was, but I knew from the rocket-like  speed it couldn’t be a bird.

                My head was still reeling, the sweat still rolling down my brow and I shrugged the incident off as a result of the heat, wondering if I was seeing things and near heat prostration.  But then the thing showed itself again, this time circling around the peacock pen and zooming like a rocket into the thick hedge-like row of raspberries, 20 yards away.   A few second later it levitated over the raspberries hovering like a helicopter peeping over a hill, obviously studying me as though anticipating a reaction.  And to my amazement, and I got a clear, unmistakable look at the thing, it was a fish – a damned fish of all things, about 28 inches long and weighing at least 5 or 6 pounds.

                I splashed more water on my face while the fish continued to hover, its large tail fin moving back and forth like it was treading water.  I don’t know how much time passed while this flying fish and I stared at each other, probably just seconds.   I quickly wiped the water from my face,  attempting to gather my wits. 

                The fish didn’t move or dart away, apparently content in letting me size it up as long as I showed no aggression.  I shook my head to see if it was an apparition and would disappear, but it didn’t.  And as my mind and eyes cleared I could see that it was a trout, of the Cutthroat type.  I noticed its gills opening and closing as it would in water and its mouth slowly opening and closing. – and as its mouth opened I could see the white, saw-like teeth.

                Apparently satisfied that I meant it no harm it came closer, that is swam closer as if it was in water.  I can’t begin to tell you how I felt.  It looked so real, a big trout swimming through the air just a few feet away, apparently as interested in me as I was of it.   But I kept telling myself, this can’t be real.  The heat has done something to my brain.

                I looked around, everything was normal, except for the fish.  My four guinea hens were scrounging through the beans  looking for insects just a few feet away apparently oblivious of the fish.  Guinea hens are like watch dogs, if a stranger enters the property, especially a dog they put up a shrill cackling stink, but they were obviously unaware of the fish.  The family pouch, Buddy, a Golden Retriever trotted up to me and plopped his head in my lap, a habit he has when he catches me sitting.  Buddy, like the guinea hens sounds a warning when strangers approach but he was apparently unaware of the fish.  I therefore  discerned that I was the only one who sensed the fish and must be suffering from a heat induced illusion.

                While I stroked Buddy’s head the fish swam closer, about six feet away and turned so I could appreciate the full extent of his body from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail and the coloring was magnificent.  His underside, the belly was as white as milk and changed magically to a bluish green on his back that was specked with dozens of distinct black spots .  Along the lower jaw extending up to the gills was that distinctive crimson slash that identified him as a Cutthroat Trout.  And although there was a breeze, his skin appeared to be wet as if he was in water, the wetness embellishing his attractive coloring.  Without a doubt he was a handsome specimen. 

                “I am of the Colorado River variety,”  the damn fish said.  I saw his mouth move and I heard the words and the voice was of a  baritone male.  By now the nausea and dizziness was gone and my full attention was on this talking, flying fish.  I chuckled to myself, thinking, “I guess if this fish can swim in the air it might as well talk also and I might as well enjoy the delirium.”

                “You know there are two species of Cutthroat Trout, “ the fish articulated in clear, plain English, “the Colorado River and the Bonneville.  We Colorado guys are indigenous to the Colorado drainage like the high Uinta streams that drain into the Green River.  Our Bonneville cousins are trapped in the Bonneville Basin and are not as good looking as we Colorado trout.  Did you know that when the Mormon pioneers first came to the Great Basin that Cutthroat Trout were plentiful in Utah Lake and the Jordan River?”

                I was so blown away by this talking fish that I didn’t answer.  I looked down at Buddy who had that contented look on his face as long as I stroked his head.  He obviously didn’t hear the fish.  Then the fish moved a little closer, I reached out to touch him, to see if he was real, and he moved back just out of arms reach.

                “What are you thinking?” the Cutthroat asked.

                “I’m thinking If you are real or if I’m imagining things,  if I could touch and feel you I would know I wasn’t dreaming or going crazy.”

                “Oh I’m real, you can count on that.”

                “Then why did you move away when I tried to touch you?”

                “Because that is the natural law of things,” he replied.  “You and I are composed of two different substances.  We can see each other and communicate, but our substance, the atoms that form us cannot intermingle because I will it.  In fact, I am more real than the trees and shrubs that shade you.”

                “Well,” I countered with a hint of sarcasm, “you are not only a flying, talking fish but a philosophical fish.”

                “I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t refer to me as just a fish.  I’m not just any fish you know, I’m a Cutthroat Trout, a native of the West – I belong to a noble species.  And why should it surprise you that I am knowledgeable?  Don’t you know that fish flesh is brain food?  So it’s not conceit when I say I’m a brainy Cutthroat Trout.”

                The breeze suddenly became stronger.  The Cutthroat positioned himself in the air so his head was in the wind, like he would if he had been in a stream of water.  The breeze felt good on my forehead.  Buddy, apparently tired of the petting trotted off.  Settling back in the old metal chair, I decided I might as well make the most of this surreal vision or phenomenon – whatever it was. 

                Whatever was happening, it was not like the dreams I have had.  The Cutthroat was very real in every way but touch.  It could talk, communicate, and apparently chose me to chat with.  But why me, I wondered?

                Now, communication between two people or two living organisms involves more than just words.  Sometimes the body language is more telling than the words.  Facial expressions  and body movements are part of a person’s personality, but with this Trout, it was expressionless except for the movement of the tail, mouth and fins.  What could I interpret from that?  This extraordinary Cutthroat Trout was as stoic as a stone which tended to throw me off balance – but I wasn’t going to let him know.

                Buddy, by comparison, has personality.  He can’t speak words but he has at least four distinct barks:  the I want to come in the house bark, there are trespassers about bark, I’ve treed a cat bark, and a greeting bark.  But his body language and facial expressions are much more telling than his bark.  You can tell when he’s happy, sad and sorry  when he knows he did something wrong.  He’s got personality to spare and 90% of the time you know what he’s thinking by his body language.  But that fish, all he has is words and words can be deceiving.  He may be brainy but a cocklebur has more personality.

                “Do you have a name,” I asked.  Sometimes a name can tell you something about the person.

                “Would you like me to have a name?” he replied.

                “It might make our conversation a little easier.  After all, this is the first time I’ve had a conversation with a fis…., a Cutthroat Trout.”

                “Okay, if a name will make our discussion more pleasing, let’s pick a name.  How about Frank?”

                I shook my head, no.  “Frank doesn’t fit.”

                “How about Archibald, it’s dignified … even sounds kingly?”

                I couldn’t help chuckling.  “No,” stifling a smile.  “That doesn’t fit either.  How about Gabriel?” 

                The fish did a quick figure eight, the first sign of emotion.  “That’s it,” he shouted, “ I’m Gabriel.  How did you know?”

                “The only thing you have in common with the biblical Gabriel is that you are both aberrations.  Gabriel was a messenger.  According to Islam it was Gabriel who dictated the Koran to Mohammad.  Are you implying that that was you?”

                “Look,” said the fish, “Let’s not get off on the wrong fin.  Call me Gab….”

                I cut him off.  “If you are real, which I doubt.  And if you are Gabriel, then you must have a message for me or you wouldn’t be here.  So do you?”

                Gab did another quick figure eight.  “Now we’re getting some place.  Yeah, I got a message.” And it almost looked like he smiled. 

                “So what is the message?”

                “Things are not always what they seem to be!”

                My mouth dropped open and I rolled my eyes.  “That’s the message?  Things are not always what they seem to be.  Gab, you just invalidated yourself.  You are not what you seem to be.”

                “So you think,” he said.  I detected resolution in the tone of his voice, as though he welcomed the challenge.  “Turn that thought around,” he proposed.  “Look around at the trees, bushes, your raspberries….    It is that which is not, what it seems to be.  It’s all stage, theater, just for your benefit.   When you are asleep at night it’s all gone.  When you wake in the morning its back.”

                “That’s sixth century philosophy, Gab.  That implies the ego or self is the central figure in the universe, that all creations are nothing but ideas created by a universal, supreme mind – like a god.  I don’t buy it.  When I get hungry I can’t eat an idea, but I can eat a tomato or raspberries.”

                Ignoring my rebuttal the fish continued his discourse.  “All that you see, or think you see, was thought out first.  The mind came first, then the tree, then the wolf, then the rabbit.  Nothing can exist without the universal mind conjuring it first.”

                Gab came closer, his tail weaving back and forth, his gills opening and closing as the air passed through his mouth and out the gills.  He looked so real.  I slowly reached out with my right hand, the index finger extended, trying to touch him again.  I got within 6 inches, and then the fish backed away.  I withdrew my finger and the fish followed as if there was an invisible force that connected us, but no closer than 6 inches. 

                “You cannot come any closer because I will it,” Gab said.  “It’s the power of will, the arrangement of atoms,  that sets all things in motion.  That’s the authentic reality.  The will.  The power of the will. Everything is in motion.  Aging is motion.  Rotting is motion.  The universe is about building up and breaking down, but nothing disappears, only reformed, reorganized.  The elements that make up the tree were once a buffalo.  The elements that make up the buffalo were once an eagle, maybe two or three eagles.  So nothing is real, it just seems real.”

                “You are attempting to turn science against itself,”  I argued.  “If you are really Gabriel and as brainy as you say, then you know that the discovery of genes has changed the archaic thinking you avouch.  Consciousness, awareness of oneself, came about via evolution.  It is the will, the self, the ego, the spirit, consciousness, or whatever you want to call it, that is a force without substance, a product of the mind.  I can only believe what the senses tell me, what I can feel, see, hear, and taste.  Granted, there are phenomenons I can’t explain, nor can science, like you Gab.  But your philosophy is older than Plato.  I think it predates and inspired the Garden of Eden myth, that God created the universe and the earth and all that exists, including mankind.  Your philosophy says trust God, an illusion created by well-meaning men, rather than the reality conveyed by the senses.  That brand of thinking in my opinion is for the impotent, the uneasy, the victims of the false omniscience of consciousness.”

                “You, my friend are a heretic,” said the fish, “ a non believer, that is why I am here.  I am no vision, no phantasm, I am the true reality.  When the tree, the buffalo, your dog Buddy are gone, reduced to dust, I will still be here because I am mind.  The body may wither away but the mind continues.”

                I could tell by the tone of Gab’s voice that he was reaching to the bottom of the barrel of ideas.  Fortunately, I had read enough that I was not going to fall for his sophistry.  But why me?  Why has he  selected me?  I’m nobody.  I have little to no influence.  I just want to play like a farmer and rancher.  I’m just a hopeless maverick.  I tried marching to the drumbeat of religion but was turned off by the deception.   Gab’s rhetoric, as far as I was concerned, was disguised religion.  Who sent him.  Why me?  What kind of an illusion was I experiencing?  I was determined to find out.

                “Gab, who are you really?  I know I’m not psychotic.  I’m not talking to myself.  No split personality here.  Who are you really?”

                “I’m consciousness.  To date, no one has been able to know what or whom I am.  I am what they say is ineffable, but yet I exist.  Your right, I’m not part of you.  You are not debating yourself.  You are debating the reality of consciousness and  the ineffable reality that only religion and mystics attempt to explain.  But you and your kind have inherited the genes of doubt, the foibles of your primitive ancestors that once were essential for survival.  It is my mission to convince you that there is something out there that is superior to reality.  Call it religion, call it intuition, call it whatever you want.  But there is a force yet to be discovered  by you humans that explains why you humans are conscious of the existence of self, and have power over the majority of Nature’s other species.  It is my mission to convince you that what science has so far discovered is not the ultimate.  There are other forces in the universe yet to be discovered.

                “Okay,” I surrendered.  “You may have a point.  60 years ago we didn’t know anything about DNA.  X-rays exit but we can’t see them.  But I reject the doctrine that the mind existed before mortality and is eternal.  Evolution gave us consciousness so we could survive in our environment.  The mind is a product of the brain, and if the brain is traumatized, the mind and personality change.  There is no evidence that the mind is eternal.  In fact, it is the opposite, when the body dies, so does the mind, that is reality.  If you  mess with the brain, the mind is altered and the personality changes.  I’m sorry Gab.  I’m just another animal on earth fortunate to be aware of self and my surroundings.  Like all the other creatures, I use what DNA gave me to eke out a living.  Evolution, not some  supreme ideal, mind or being created my species and the wherewithal to manipulate the environment.  And look what my species has accomplished, for both good and evil.  No god can claim credit“

                Suddenly, the dizziness returned and I felt nauseous.  “Put your head between your legs and you will be alright in a minute,” Gab instructed.    I did as he advised.  And while I struggled against the impulse to keel over and sink to the ground, I heard Gab say,  “John, remember, I said things are not always what they seem to be.  Did it occur to you that I did not come to change your thinking, but to reinforce it?”

                Buddy appeared out of nowhere and slavered affectionately my cheek with his tongue.  It took a few seconds to get hold of myself, with Buddies’ help.  As I struggled to raise my head and shake off the encroaching delirium, I probed for the thermos of cool water beside the chair.  I took what was left of the water and poured it over my head.  It blurred my eyes, and wiping the water from my eyes I expected to see Gab swimming stoically at arm’s length, ready to expound more of his philosophy – but he wasn’t there.   

                I surveyed the trees, shrubs and row of raspberries where I had seen him playing hide-and-seek before his enigmatic appearance, but he wasn’t there.  Something told me he wouldn’t, that his mission had been completed.  But I still didn’t know why me. 

                Now, I’m a realist.  I don’t believe in magic or supernatural phenomenon.  I wasn’t dreaming and if I imagined Gab, it was the most realistic imagination I have ever experienced.  And why would I make up a story like that, a talking, philosophical fish that swims through the air. 

                This phenomenon, vision, supernatural encounter, or whatever you want to call it occurred two weeks ago.  Since then I have been more circumspect when working in the garden.  I have limited myself and made sure I consumed lots of water.  Gab has never reappeared, and I have full control over my faculties.  I don’t know how to explain my encounter with Gab or even if I dare  relate it.  But at my age, what the hell, people will just say I have a vivid imagination. 

                I still think that I was on the verge of sun stoke and my mind was playing tricks, at least that’s the pragmatic explanation.  But damn it, Gab seemed so real,  and if he was some supernatural  entity, why did he appear as a fish, of all things?  And why me?