He was a fish to keep a man all winter, he thought. Don't think of that. Just rest and try to get your hands in shape to defend what is left of him. The blood smell from my hands means nothing now with all that scent in the water. Besides they do not bleed much. There is nothing cut that means anything. The bleeding may keep the left from cramping.
What can I think of now? he thought. Nothing. I must think of nothing and wait for the next ones. I wish it had really been a dream, he thought. But who knows? It might have turned out well.
The next shark that came was a single shovel-nose. He came like a pig to the trough if a pig had a mouth so wide that you could put your head in it. The old man let him hit the fish and then drove the knife on the oar down into his brain. But the shark jerked backwards as he rolled and the knife blade snapped.
The old man settled himself to steer. He did not even watch the big shark sinking slowly in the water, showing first life-size, then small, then tiny. That always fascinated the old man. But he did not even watch it now.
"I have the gaff now," he said. "But it will do no good. I have the two oars and the tiller and the short club."
Now they have beaten me, he thought. I am too old to club sharks to death. But I will try it as long as I have the oars and the short club and the tiller.
Furnace is working again. Screened a matinee movie for the poetry festival--Moccasins and Microphones again. Better attendance this time.
My daughter graduated from the Student Leader Fellowship Program tonight at the university. I attended the dinner/ceremony, and even got my daughter to pose for a picture.
Saint Marty's koan for tonight: keep an extra knife in your boat for shark emergencies.
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