Reinforced

Autumn 2007:  got a nibble on the end of my line, which had been cast into the job-pond a dozen times in seven years without any bites. The fish was extremely attractive when I pulled it up; it was almost mythical in status, and like that Chinese carp of gold, it promised to grant me exactly what I had wished for.

I remember certain qualities of scale and sliminess, in scales and texture, that today, a planet-revolution later, have proven to be true impressions. Would that the little girl had looked more closely at the teeth looming behind the luminescent lure, she would not have been munched so whole-heartedly as Jonah.

And, spit out 13 months later, tattered, bleached, weary and yet wiser, she finds solace in the imperfect symmetry of seashells and in the fact that she can trust her first impressions much better now.