Читать книгу Never Cry Halibut. and Other Alaska Hunting and Fishing Tales онлайн

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“Hello, my name is Bjorn Dihle. I’ve not had fish terrors for a week now.”

But what would haunt my dreams in the place of fish? I doubted there was anything out there as satisfying to be haunted by. Nothing as simple and magical as their lives and stories shrouded beneath the water. The dirty truth of the matter was that I cherished my fish demons. I miss fishing in Hyalite Creek, and I think about that first grayling more than is healthy. Waking up screaming is a small price to pay for having been lucky enough to go fishing.

MOUNTAIN OF MEMORIES

THERE ARE MANY GREAT THINGS about civilization—reality television, french fries, and a seemingly infinite number of back-hair waxing products, for example. I try to appreciate the advantages of living in the twenty-first century, but sometimes it gets a little much. On a recent August day, while in a giant shopping mall, I was suddenly overcome with an intense feeling of hopelessness. Near the toddler’s clothing fashions, I fought the urge to crash a shopping cart into a pretentiously dressed mannequin. When did little kids begin caring about fashion? Whatever happened to the days when they were content wearing burlap sacks and chasing animals, rolling in mud and eating worms? And what was with all these skinny, anatomically correct mannequins with their chiseled abs and smug smiles? Give me realism; give me mannequins with beer guts, fat butts, crooked noses, lopsided skulls, varicose veins, crooked spines, and blemished skin. I had the feeling something other than me was trying to manufacture my reality. I was nearing the aisle dedicated solely to no-tears pet shampoo and conditioner when I had the sudden desire to flee into the wild.