Baiting the Hook

By Peter Bowden


The boy held the cane pole the way his grandfather had shown him, loose in the fingers, never gripping too tight. The morning pond was still, a sheet of dark glass waiting for the first touch of the sun. He dug his thumb into the cool tin of worms, feeling them curl and twist like secrets wanting to be told. The air smelled of damp grass and old water, and somewhere a crow called once, as if to mark the beginning.

He chose one worm carefully, the way a person chooses a sentence to start a story. It writhed and shimmered in the soft light, and he threaded it on the hook the way he’d been taught, firm enough to hold, gentle enough not to tear. The cane pole flexed slightly with each movement, as if the pole itself remembered mornings like this: bare feet in dew, ripples widening from a careless step, the world holding its breath for the cast. The boy’s heart beat slow and steady, steady as the circling dragonflies that stitched the surface with blue-green fire.

When he flicked the line outward, the bait arced like a sliver of hope and kissed the water with the quietest sound. The ripples spread, and with them came a small, familiar magic; the knowing that anything might rise from the secret deep. He waited, the pole resting in his hands, feeling the world settle around him. In that stillness, the boy understood what the old fishermen meant: that sometimes the catching matters less than the casting, and that a cane pole, a pond, and a single wriggling worm could teach you patience better than a thousand sermons. And as the bobber trembled, just once, he felt himself smile, already grateful for whatever came next.

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