Fishing
Channel: John Sakars
Date: 2022-05-21

Once upon a time, 
a boy tied a hook onto a string, 
and the string onto a stick. 
He snapped his wrists and the stick jerked upward,  
flinging the hook up into the sky. 
He caught a bird.
The bird struggled to escape, 
and the hook sank deeper into her mouth. 
The boy waved the stick around,    
smiling as if he were flying a kite. 
The bird flapped her wings hard, 
trying desperately to break free. 
She squawked, 
drawing the attention of the people in the park.  
“Child, stop torturing that bird,” a woman yelled.  
She pulled the stick from the boy’s hands.  
She thought about pulling the string down to draw the bird near, 
so she could remove the hook.  
But she didn’t want to hurt the bird  
more than she was already hurt.  
Suddenly, the bird pulled so hard 
the string snapped, and she flew away.   
Several people approached the child and scolded him. 
“That was not okay,” someone said.   
“Birds feel pain,” said another. 
“Never do that again.”  
The boy apologized to the people. 
He yelled at the bird in the distance. 
“I am sorry, bird!”  
Except, that’s not really what happened. 
The first part is true.  
A boy tied a hook onto a string, 
and the string onto a stick. 
And he snapped his wrists   
and the stick jerked upward, 
flinging the hook up into the sky. 
But the hook didn’t catch a bird.   
The hook landed in the water and caught a fish. 
The fish struggled to escape, 
and the hook sank deeper into her mouth.  
She screamed. 
But no one saw her or heard her. 
People saw the child waving the stick around, 
and they said nothing.  
Just a child fishing, they thought.