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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 4043 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention A Lifeline Nellie Melba (Lorin Ford) Fishing out from Mallacoota I hooked into something big: quick heaviness on the nylon handline, me the lucky, chosen for no reason, redskin girl the focus of my father’s and his mate’s astonished gaze, me feeding the line out fast because the boat was already moving, drift anchor and all, the hidden thing towing us, the boat, the two men and Joan woken from their doze, their beer cans dazzling the sun back, their three rods nodding slack as the ‘Craven A’ cigarettes hanging from their mouths, while I fed out the line from the hand reel, turning it careful like I steered Ron McKinnon’s tractor the day he let me drive it round his paddock. I was, those gliding moments, standing at the bow, captain of that boat led out along an ocean highway by a thread. ....................The line snapped when Dad stood up to take control and grabbed it. We just sat there then and the wavelets rolled and slapped the boat sides until our tempers cooled. Shark, my father guessed but his mate the professional fisherman said more likely a manta ray, the way it was moving steady like that and heavy on the line. They don’t take bait. He winked.Ya winged it, love. A big one. ....................Underneath the recollecting tingle of my skin a pulse in arms and wrists is still attuned to the ray’s transmission: rhythmic silence, deep-sea beating, tireless, fluid wings. |
