January 19: There Was Nothing, Endemic, Big and Hungry

The fish finally shows up . . .

Just then, watching his lines, he saw one of the projecting green sticks dip sharply.

"Yes," he said. "Yes," and shipped his oars without bumping the boat. He reached out for the line and held it softly between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. He felt no strain nor weight and he held the line lightly. Then it came again. This time it was a tentative pull, not solid nor heavy, and he knew exactly what it was. One hundred fathoms down a marlin was eating the sardines that covered the point and the shank of the hook where the hand-forged hook projected from the head of the small tuna.

The old man held the line delicately, and softly, with his left hand, unleashed it from the stick. Now he could let it run through his fingers without the fish feeling any tension.

This far out, he must be huge in this month, he thought. Eat them, fish. Eat them. Please eat them. How fresh they are and you down there six hundred feet in that cold water in the dark. Make another turn in the dark and come back and eat them.

He felt the light delicate pulling and then a harder pull when a sardine's head must have been more difficult to break from the hook. Then there was nothing.

Santiago knows it's a marlin.  Knows that it's about six hundred feet below his boat.  And that it's a monster of a fish this far out from land.  He knows all this by the touch of his fingers on the line and the years he has spent on the sea.  Perhaps his luck is finally going to change.

I went into the classroom today for the first time since the Omicron variant started surging in our area.  I was wearing an N-95 mask, as were all the students.  Everyone is doing what they're supposed to be doing.  And, for the first time since the pandemic started, I actually heard someone use the term endemic when talking about COVID.

Let's be realistic here, though.  COVID isn't going away.  For the rest of our lives, all intelligent people will be getting a yearly COVID vaccine, perhaps coupled with the flu vaccine.  That's how COVID will be controlled, regardless of what any horse pill-pusher says.  COVID will always be swimming underneath the surface, six hundred feet down, big and hungry.

Just a little reality check for everybody out there.  If you are wondering when everything is going to go back to "normal" . . . You are probably living in normal right now.  Just keep checking your fishing lines and watching the horizon for coming storms.

Saint Marty ain't throwing out his facemasks any time soon.