The Mutilator

SciArtSeptember + #SundayFishSketch

River Monsters

We were five hundred feet or less when we heard a loud pop and then the plane started shaking. In front of me I saw the blades of the single prop becoming visible, and in my peripheral vision I was aware of treetops rising to meet us. From inside a vortex of wordless fear, I heard the gentle flicking sound of something brushing our underbelly. Then again, more heavily, and then there was a second pause, doubly filled with both certainty and unknowing. Then everything went dark and a giant hand was shaking us, the g-forces coming from all directions at once, before slamming us sideways and down with the sound of tearing metal. For a millisecond my thought was one thing only: it was over and I was unhurt. Then my lungs filled with an unmistakeable sharp taste, as liquid poured onto my shoulders from above: fuel. I clawed at my harness buckle but found it jammed, as the liquid rose up my body to my chest. Not understanding how there could possibly be this much fuel, I reached for my knife, but the pilot had freed me, and I swam out the copilot’s door supported by the stinking liquid, which for some reason now extended in all directions under trees.

As I swam underneath the plane’s tail, I saw four figures standing on the water’s surface. Moments later they had pulled me up onto the port wing. Sunlight poured through the hole we’d torn in the canopy, illuminating the wrecked plane and shredded trees, and five men without a single scratch between them.

“DAD!” I hollered. “HE’S TALKING TO SOME OJIBWE ABOUT A BIG SNAKE!” 

Man. It was all so familiar. That’s my native language they were speaking. I talk to the little ginebig in my yard. The little snakes I catch when I’m doing yard work. I know about the manidoo Jeremy made an offering to before the end, and I laughed when a giant musky hit on his line after that. Not until then though, and I know that fish was laughing too, because he wasn’t even trying to catch it, and he wasn’t ready. Both me and my dad were laughing, because that manidoo was teasing him. 

But he put down asema (tobacco) for that fish, and so the fish came, and he was so happy, and he hugged her and let her go.

That’s why I love this show. Okay? Because he talks to them the same way that I do. He’s not one of these obnoxious sport anglers who woo-hoos and crap. It’s about respect. And knowledge.