I’d wake up very early in the morning, when the sky was violet birthing the new day, and I’d walk along the seashore, floating in that peaceful still of nature, pierced now and then by some unseen birds’ songs. The air would be still cool from its embrace with the now retreating night, and the sky would be low and heavy with the coolness of the air, enveloping me and my slow walk just as it was intended to do for thousands of years before my birth. Then I would stop by the old bunkers, old since WWII, half immersed in sand, their grayish-green contours resembling from afar to a motionless, wounded warrior that had fallen on the sand of this bay straight from an ancient legend.

It was there where I kept my fishing gear, tucked in a corner between the concrete walls of the bunkers. The fishing gear was not much altogether, just a line, some hooks and a big glass jar filled with dirt, water and worms that I had dug out from the banks of the nearby river.

I’d stop between the bunkers and then rest my sight upon the vastness of the sea. It was quiet, like the freeze-frame of a perfect flatness, a never-ending mirror where now, I was sure, the sky would look at itself while changing colors and belonging officially to the day. As the sun would rise higher and higher over the bay, animal voices would fill the air with their echoes coming from the forest and the forest itself would become green and serious about it. With its straight pine trees, and filling the bay corner to corner next to the sand, the forest looked like an army of strange beings that had flown over during the night from the other side of the mountain and then had come to a screeching halt right beside the sand, amazed by the sea. All the back trees waited patiently now for their turn to come at the first row and be able to watch.

This was enough for me to get inspired and get the line into the sea. Sometimes I’d just throw the line by hand as far as I could and some mastery was needed for that. I was getting better at it. But in days like this when the sea was flat and oily with sleep, I’d put the line between my teeth and swim with great pleasure as far as the line could go. After dropping the line, I’d turn toward the shore and see far away the shoreline laying there as a white snake, with the bunkers like some big lump at one end of it, as if the snake had just swallowed a small animal. To escape this image, I’d roll on my back and look at the sky instead, floating on the sea water. The sea-water had thinned out as the day settled on it, and filled with an unexplainable joy, I’d start swimming fast toward the shore, ready to catch me some big fish, tasting it already in my mind…