Fisher Girls – by Barry Lee Thompson
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Over time we’ve come to call them the fisher girls. There were three of them that day, whip-thin and dressed head to toe in black, with jet-black hair scraped off their faces and secured into tails at their necks. Long, those tails, swinging this way and that as the girls walked in measured steps to the river’s edge.
We watched as they unzipped their narrow bags and deftly assembled short, sturdy rods. I thought they must have come to the river to fish, and how unlike the usual fishermen they were. But when it looked as if they might be about to cast, they turned their backs on the water and stood still and silent in a line, facing us. Expressions impassive, rods held steady.
Benny turned to me, a wide question in his eyes. I told him not to fret. I said there was no way the girls could see us, so low and obscured behind the grasses.
“Benny turned to me, a wide question in his eyes. I told him not to fret. I said there was no way the girls could see us, so low and obscured behind the grasses.”
Then, smoothly, one after the other, they lifted their rods into the air, left to right, and began moving them in circles above their heads. A wire was attached to each rod, and each wire was weighted at its end by a small dark object.
They spun slowly at first, and as their rhythms became established and the speed increased, the wires lengthened, stretched taut by the weights.
The three girls behaved as one, mirror images, each paying close and calm attention to her own rod and wire as it spun tight, faster, catching afternoon sun like silver spider thread.
I was feeling a surge in my chest, and I lifted myself a little, raising my head for a clearer view. I angled my face towards Benny, but kept my eyes fixed on the girls. I said that the girls reminded me of something. It was in the way they stood, three as one, contained, in command of their surrounds.
‘Let’s go,’ said Benny. ‘I don’t like this.’
‘You can go,’ I said, though I knew he wouldn’t leave without me. ‘I want to see what happens.’
I said again that there was no way we could be seen from the edge of the river, camouflaged in the grasses. I nodded as I spoke. I could tell he wasn’t looking at me, but I nodded to add gravity to the words.
The wires were spinning faster, accelerating and gradually descending. They were singing as they spun, singing as they sliced the air in circles. The wires grew longer, the circles wider. Soon the wires were stretched, whining right above us, their sound becoming louder and higher, building and coming and going as they passed. The weights at their ends were a blur.
“Soon the wires were stretched, whining right above us, their sound becoming louder and higher, building and coming and going as they passed. The weights at their ends were a blur.”
‘What are they doing?’ whispered Benny.
I had no idea and pretended not to have heard. I usually had answers and Benny needed answers.
‘Let’s go,’ he said, tugging my sleeve.
I shook him off, lowered my head again, keeping my eyes on the girls, the wires moving faster, creating that eerie sound all around, a sound moving and deepening and somehow broadening. It felt as if the sound was emanating from a centre, spreading and undulating, occupying the very air about us.
We kept low, Benny and I. As low and flat as possible. I was trying to figure out how this was all working, how the wires weren’t colliding and entangling, but the effort was tiring, so I let it drift away.
The wires were fine and sharp with unstoppable motion, glinting as they caught the late sun. Like razor blades, I thought. Like slivers of lethal power.
‘That wire,’ I mused softly to myself, ‘would slice through thick blocks of cheese.’ I wasn’t sure if I’d said it aloud, so I shot a checking glance at Benny in case he’d heard. He was staring towards the river and the girls and their wires, with those huge eyes of his growing even wider.
‘Imagine what the wire might do to our necks,’ I thought, though I kept that one inside.
The girls were staring, as if they could see past the line of trees behind us, and even beyond the horizon, right to the end, to the place where every answer lies. And the piercing music of the wires suggested that the girls had come from that place.
“The girls were staring, as if they could see past the line of trees behind us, and even beyond the horizon, right to the end, to the place where every answer lies. And the piercing music of the wires suggested that the girls had come from that place.”
Through all of this I’d begun to have a strange feeling: that the girls knew everything. That they knew we were there, and had known of our presence long before they arrived at the river. They were aware of how we’d ducked low, how we’d shrunk to keep clear of the wires. Maybe they’d sniffed our anxieties lacing the air. Maybe they could sense everything, and for that reason they could do anything they wanted, anything at all, and nothing would stand in their way.
We pressed our bodies onto the ground. The wires kept their downward trajectory, lower and lower; it was inevitable that they’d eventually reach low enough to touch us. They knew this, the girls. Their actions were rehearsed and deliberate; I felt this with a steady certainty. They were aware of our thoughts, and had glimpsed the future. I didn’t say anything to Benny, but told myself that everything would work out, that it’d be alright, over and over like a chant.
My neck and shoulders ached, so I turned onto my back and stretched out, arms by my sides, body and feet resigned, breaths slow and steady. I gazed up at the endless sky through the blur of the wires, and I listened closely to the music of that spinning material, and even though I could no longer see the girls, it didn’t matter anymore, because they were fixed in my mind and I could picture them standing, not so far away, by the river’s edge, three as one, spinning the wires over our heads.
‘Why don’t we run?’ whispered Benny, right by my ear, his breath hot and urgent.
I said nothing. I wasn’t sure if he’d been asking a question, or making a suggestion, or simply saying what he felt should be said. And if it had been a question, then immobility and surrender to beauty was my response, and I was absolutely sure of that answer. I didn’t want to run anywhere. Here, now, this was the place. I was immersed, and my heartbeat had calmed to its slowest ever.
As the wires came lower, their music became uniform, steady. Somehow, impossibly, the sound was both high and low in pitch – the highest and the lowest and everything between and outside, as if an infinite symphony of sounds had been concentrated into a single point. And the light that the wires conducted had split into vibrant spectrums, with colours I’d never seen before. The colours and the sounds held taste and scent and movement. Metallic, sulphurous, elemental.
It was the most defiant and compelling spectacle I’d ever witnessed, and I had no reason to believe that anything this beautiful or profound would appear again. So I wanted to stay, observe, and wait for the outcome.
Ignoring Benny’s doubts, and certain he’d follow my example and remain against all his instincts, I watched the wires capture and recreate the light. Then I closed my eyes and listened and tasted and smelled and felt the sound as it deepened and intensified. Although my eyes were closed, I began to see the sound, and it became clearer and clearer, and I waited for the spinning wires to come low enough to reach us. ▼
Image: James Ahlberg
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