One
The day was a glorious one, and the early summer Sun beat down warmly from a cloudless sky. On the decking at the water’s edge beneath the thick overhanging trees, their branches full to the brim with leaves of varying greens as they were, Nate lay back on the cushioned lounger and closed his eyes. The most gentle of breezes fluttered the leaf-laden branches above him as a family of squirrels did whatever it is that squirrels do to pass the time.
“Yeah, this could be a whole lot worse,” he said, quietly. The small island in the Thames that he had stumbled upon a couple of decades prior was Nate’s personal paradise. He had a roof over his head by way of a flat-pack summer house he had managed to acquire at the local B&Q, that he had been able to assemble over the course of a couple or three days. The summer house had electricity, too, thanks to the solar panels that he had fitted to the roof. It did not have running water, of course, but following pretty much forty years of a near-total lack of human activity he figured the river water was plenty clean enough, though he always boiled it before drinking it, just in case.
The rod in his hand jerked sharply, snapping him from his daydreaming, and he quickly rose to a seated position that he might better pull in his catch. He had no real idea about fish and was very much self-taught when it came to catching them. He pulled it out of the water and towards him as it dangled on the line, moving itself in every possible direction as it sought freedom.
“Sorry, fishie, but you’ll be going in my belly this evening.”
He dropped the fish to the decking where it flopped and flollopped, though he put it out of its misery as quickly as he could with a swift, powerful whack to its head, with a stick he kept handy for that very purpose. Once it was dead, he dropped it into the bucket beside him and cast his line out once again. It was such a lovely day, after all, and as there were no guarantees the next day was ever going to be quite as nice, he had every intention of catching tomorrow’s dinner, too.
Nate might have had that intention but it seemed the fish had other ideas, and he did not get another bite. Deciding to call it a night as the temperature began to drop a little and the Sun carried on its daily routine, he pulled in the empty line and placed the fishing rod to the decking. Then he picked up the bucket and made his way through the deceptively thick island woodland towards the clearing he had cut at the eastern end.
It was not a large clearing by any stretch of the imagination, but then again it was not a particularly large island. It served its purpose, however, and Nate grinned as the chickens that ran free over the island pecked at various patches of dirt, clucking contentedly.
An hour or so later, having eaten his evening meal of fish and eggs, he sat out upon the porch of the summer house. The evening was a warm one, and he suspected he would likely fall asleep out in the night air. It would certainly not be the first time he had done so, after all.
