Tangled Up In Blue

Chapter 1

The water was a cool and gentle kind of blue.
It was soothing.
Guy dipped his hand into it.
Tiny ripples formed around his fingers.
Gently he swished the water back and forth, reveling in the refreshment it provided for his hot skin.
Then he baited his hook and cast his fishing line into the lake.
The force of the motion rocked the boat just a little.
Guy sat back to steady the craft.
He felt the sun on his face.
Powerful rays burned down on his well-tanned arms with the high intensity of mid-summer.
Guy stared out across the lake and waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
The sun sank lower and lower in the sky.
Finally he felt a tug on the line.
He did nothing at first.
Once a fish was hooked it was good to let it gain some distance.
The fish in the area were quite large.
Guy didn't want to risk the small boat capsizing as a result of a sudden, powerful movement from the fish.
He wanted to wear it out first.
When the fish was a few yards back, he put just enough pressure on the line to keep it from getting any farther out.
Now it was time to wait again.
Guy sat and waited while the fish thrashed around in the water.
All the while he held a firm grip on the pole.
It took a long time.
But finally the fish had appeared to wear itself out.
Guy began the final step in the process.
Slowly but surely he began to reel the fish in.
Every few seconds he would stop, and wait.
Wait to see if the fish had any excess energy just waiting to escape.
The sun was beginning to disappear behind the reeds.
Finally the fish was close enough to be pulled up.
Guy slowly began to drag the fish out of the water.
This part always took the most stamina.
The fish there could top one hundred pounds.
It was no easy task to get it out of the water.
And unfortunately for Guy it never did make it all the way out.
The fish, perhaps using up a last bit of energy, suddenly began to thrash violently.
Its muscles flexed.
Its scales reflected a rainbow of colors in the dying light of the evening.
Guy used all the strength he had.
But it was no use.
The four foot long fish snapped the line clean in two with one flick of its tailfin.
It plunged back into the water with a splash that made the boat rock violently.
Guy watched as the deep blue of the water engulfed the fish once more, relentlessly staking its claim on the creature.
He watched as the fish swam away.
The water owned the fish, and the fish belonged to the water.
The fish was determined that nothing was going to change that.
Guy didn't blame it.
He knew there was nothing that could be done.
The fish was tangled up in blue.



Chapter 2

Guy wiped the sweat from his brow.
Then he rowed the boat to shore.
He rolled up his pants and stepped out of the boat.
The ankle deep water felt good on his hot and calloused feet.
Tiny rocks crunched beneath his toes as he dragged the little boat onto the bank.
He picked up his fishing pole and rested it on his shoulder.
In his other hand he held on to his tackle box.
Once more he glanced at the lake.
Then he walked up the shore to the small wood cabin he called home.
He wiped his feet on the worn down welcome mat lying pathetically in front of his door before entering.
No one’s feet but his own had ever used it.
He kneeled down on the cool wooden floor and began to disassemble his beloved fishing pole.
Gingerly he rubbed each piece with a cloth so that it shown like new.
He grabbed his special box from the table beside him and placed each piece gently inside.
Then his stomach reminded him that he had eaten nothing since noon.
He stood up and went to examine the state of his tiny kitchen.
Luckily he still had some leftover fish tucked neatly in the freezer.
He fried it up on his stove’s sole burner.
Quickly he ate up the small portion and sat at his table to eat, facing the empty chair across from him.
The smartly curved edges gave him a teasing smile.
All of his furniture was home-made.
Each piece had been crafted with upmost care.
But Guy had no idea why he ever made that damn chair.
It spent its days mocking him.
He washed down his modest meal with a cold beer.
Beer was the one thing Guy was willing to splurge on.
It made the long, lonely silences more bearable.
Now it was nearly dark.
Guy returned to the main room to sit in his favorite chair, a large and comfortable armchair in a corner of the room.
All the upholstery had been done by Guy, too.
The look and feel of the fabric was just to his liking.
He switched on the only light in the room, a small reading lamp by the side of the grand chair.
After making a quick visit to his bookshelf he sat down in the chair and smiled.
The book he had chosen was an old favorite of his.
Its title was etched in gold letters and its pages were protected by a cover in a rich, dark blue.
For a while he just stared at it, a smile still playing on the edge of his mouth.
Then he opened it up and began to read.
Quickly he became engrossed in its contents.
He could sense the hours passing by.
He knew he should put the book down.
But he couldn’t do it.
He was lost among its every page, its every word.
Time after time he tried to close it for the night and save it for another day.
But he could not pull away from it.
The book’s every sentence was skillfully written and the feel of the blue cover felt good in his hands.
Slowly but surely, Guy was tangled up in blue.



Chapter 3

The moon hung high in the sky by the time Guy finally put down the book.
He had finished it.
Again he smiled a bit.
He had lost.
He always lost.
He was just no match for that book.
It had beaten him, just like the fish had.
He stood slowly and stretched his arms out wide.
It was high time he got some sleep.
In his box of a room, he stripped down to his undergarments.
Then he crawled under his thick blue comforter.
The days were hot but the nights were cold, even in the summer.
He had no air conditioning and suffered during the summer heat.
He did, however, have a wood burning stove for warmth,
but he needed to save his wood ration for the wintertime,
when both days and nights were bitter.
So for now he had to make do with wrapping the comforter around him.
He shut his eyes and waited for sleep to come.
It was a short wait.
It was late and his day had been long.
He was exhausted and slept deeply.
But he dreamed of many things.
Living so isolated had caused him to develop an excellent imagination.
He dreamed nearly every night.
His dreams were filled with foreign lands and foreign people.
But he also dreamed of familiar faces.
One in particular stood out among the rest.
It was because of this person that Guy knew he dreamed in color.
Every time he dreamed of him he remembered the blue of the man’s eyes.
It was the last thing he saw before he opened his own eyes.
Guy’s body ran on a natural clock.
He had stopped using an alarm clock years ago.
He always awoke right at the crack of dawn, whenever that might be.
The grey light of early morning welcomed him.
But his comforter had conformed to the shape of his slender frame overnight.
Guy had little room to move.
The blanket strictly encased him, but it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling.
He wanted to get up.
He knew he needed to.
It was essential for him to have a successful day fishing.
His stock was running dangerously low,
even though it was the best season for the largest and most abundant fish.
But the warm embrace of the blanket urged him to stay put.
Its soft caress as he moved even a little let him know that it wanted him to stay.
It called out to him.
It whispered to him ever so softly.
“Stay with me, please,” it plead.
And Guy stayed.
He closed his eyes again and lay there until the sun was well over the horizon.
There in his bed under a layer of warmth and comfort he remained,
tangled up in blue.



Chapter 4

Finally, after many hours, Guy dragged himself out from beneath the covers.
The comforter showed its sorrow without Guy’s presence.
It lay there, limp and lonely.
“Feel sorry for me,” it said.
And Guy did, just a little.
“Have pity, come back to me,” it cooed.
But that was one thing Guy could not do.
Sympathetic to its fate, he smoothed it out across the bed and tucked its corner neatly under the mattress.
“Perk up,” he told it. “I will be back again tonight.”
He cooked a quick breakfast for himself.
Fish again, of course.
He was down to his last cuts, and he knew that had to change.
So he took his tackle box and the special box that contained his fishing pole and went outside to face the morning sun.
He sat down in the grass a little ways from the cabin, feeling the warm rays on his face.
He opened the fishing pole’s special box and delicately put it together.
Then he swiftly took the few steps necessary to reach the cabin and placed the black box at its proper location on the table.
He exited the cabin once more, quite determined to accomplish a great deal that day.
By the sun’s position in the sky, Guy could tell it was nearly noon already.
He had already wasted far too much time.
But looking up towards the sky had been a mistake.
After seeing the sun, he allowed his eyes to wander towards the open sky.
It was a beautiful, brilliant blue.
There were no clouds at all.
There was nothing but the endless blue.
It intrigued him.
No, it fascinated him.
Such a pure and never ending kind of blue.
He lay back in the soft grass.
His newly assembled fishing pole lay on one side of him.
The tackle box sat squarely on the other.
Neither of them got any use that day.
Guy put his hands behind his head and relaxed.
He stared up at the sky with large, brown eyes that expressed al the admiration in the world.
Admiration for this sweet and lovely blue that flaunted itself before him.
There were many times in which tried to look away.
He would suddenly be reminded that the fishing pole and tackle box still lay untouched at his sides.
Many times his hands twitched toward the items.
But something deep in his subconscious prevented him from ever picking them up.
He was stuck lying in the grass that day, he knew that much for sure.
His eyes remained glued to the sky and he couldn’t stop another tiny smile from showing up on his face.
Whether he liked it or not, he was once again tangled up in blue.



Chapter 5

At some point Guy must have dozed off.
His eyes opened suddenly but he hadn’t remembered closing them.
Immediately he searched for the blue in the sky.
But he was highly disappointed.
The vast blue sky had been overrun with large clouds.
They were gathering quickly and they enveloped the entire sky on a somber gray.
They decreased the intensity of the sun’s light and made it look as though more time had passed than actually did.
But Guy knew it was still too late to bother going out on the lake.
Especially not with the formidable clouds rolling in.
It would be more than a little risky to be out on the lake in his tiny rowboat when a storm was sure to begin at any moment.
It would be plain stupidity.
Guy stood and looked around.
He didn’t know what to do with himself, now that any kind of fishing was out of the picture.
He hadn’t missed a day of fishing since he had first arrived here.
With a sigh he decided that there was nothing left to do but return to the cabin.
Just in time, it started to rain, and then to pour.
He picked up his pole and tackle box and turned around to face his home.
Then he dropped them right back on the ground again.
Standing before him was the familiar face of his dreams.
He had his nose, his mouth, his hair, his smile.
He had all the same little imperfections.
The tiny wrinkles and creases in his face were located at just the right spots.
But most importantly, he had the same eyes.
The same bright blue eyes that Guy could never forget as long as he lived, even out in the middle of nowhere.
The same eyes that shone brightly even as the body they were a part of became slowly soaked in the rain.
“Chris,” Guy whispered, his voice caked with love.
Chris didn’t say anything.
He simply smiled.
Then he made a small motion with his hand, gesturing Guy to come closer.
Hesitantly, Guy complied.
He stepped towards Chris in complete awe.
Not once did he look away from his eyes.
Finally he was within touching distance.
He reached out to hug him tight.
But his arms grasped at nothing, and he lost his balance on the slippery ground, only to fall face first into the mud.
Guy sat up right away and blinked a few times.
It had all been a hallucination.
Probably a result of dehydration, he realized, from lying in the sun so long.
He hadn’t had a drop of water to drink in all that time.
He stood and did his best to wipe the mud from his face.
He collected his things and returned to the cabin, soaking wet and feeling like an idiot.
Only a gullible fool would fall for such a thing, he thought.
He supposed he had been so easily tricked because the thought of Chris’s blue eyes rarely ever left his mind.
Somewhere in his subconscious they always remained, and revealed themselves through his dreams.
He shook his head in disbelief and almost laughed.
Even after all these years, he was still tangled up in blue.



THE END