Tangle

The fishing net is tangled around my ankles, but I’m not on a fishing boat, not on a pier, not anywhere near the water. I’m on Delancey Street, just having enjoyed a sublime gelato from il Laboratorio del Gelato. I stumble a bit, hobbled like a steer caught in a gaucho’s bolo. Miraculously I manage to not fall over. I wonder how a fishing net wound up on the street on the Lower East Side. A cruel joke of the gods? Who is the fishing god anyway, Neptune? He must be getting me back for all those times I tweaked his nose as I passed the Dakota on the Upper West Side. Funny, the things we do without worrying about the consequences. In ancient times, we must have been ever mindful of our smallest actions for fear of angering such gods. My transgression could have meant being ostracized because my actions would bring Wrath upon not only my head, but the entire clan. Life’s rhythms are changed by assumed consequence. Once a rule was made up – say, don’t step on the cracks or you’ll break your mother’s back – it would probably first become a personal habit. Or it might be encoded into a whole community of walkers with a head-downward creed of humility in the service of paranoia. A cult of watching where you walk.

What was lost

The bottom of the lake is where she imagined the ring would be. Darlene hadn’t listened to the little voice inside. Until that afternoon. As she set out for her journey across the lake in the canoe, she thought about taking off the ring and putting it in her pocket. It was a ring her grandmother had given her, the last time she visited. The last time she heard her grandmother’s sweet and soothing voice in real life, not in her head as she often did now. Her grandmother handed her the ring, a ruby set in bright yellow gold, telling Darlene how she and Grandpa visited India when they were much younger. How the smells of the market lingered in their clothes and hair and how they were reminded of their trip whenever they followed their noses down East 6th Street in New York. The ring immediately spoke to the newlyweds, and although they already had their diamond engagement ring and solid gold wedding bands, it felt like this was a ring that symbolized the new adventure they were setting forth on together. As Darlene excitedly slipped it on her finger she felt a jolt of envy then, of her grandmother’s lifetime of travel and adventure. Perhaps the ring’s new home at the bottom of the lake was a signal to leave old envies in a cold, deep sleeping place. Darlene would have to take the next step.