The Young Man and the Lake

 

The Young Man and the Lake

A Story of Redemption

He was a young man who fished from a rental rowboat on a small lake fed by the effluent from a sewer plant and he had gone eight minutes without taking a fish. In the first four minutes a boa constrictor had been with him, but after four minutes, without catching a fish, the boa constrictor told the young man he was as unlucky as Saul, which is the worst form of unlucky, and left. The boat continued to bob up and down with every flush of a toilet. The young man continued to fish, too embarrassed to return to the marina without a catch. The sun glared down from a cloudless sky. The young man dipped his hat in the water and sighed. He looked across the lagoon and into the trees, but he could think only of the fish that might be swimming beneath his boat.

His name was Lorenzo, and he