When you are telling a story, you should not omit any of the facts or you will turn the whole thing into a lie. Sometimes the facts maybe hard to accept and appear suspiciously close to being a lie, nevertheless, just tell it, as that is all the truth there is.

This story is about a fisherman. He had seven children and a fat, pleasant wife. Very early every morning, he would leave home and go down to the sea, row his canoe very far out into the ocean to the place where he had set his traps. When he had money to spare, he would attach the outboard motor to the canoe and speed out to retrieve the traps. However, gasoline was expensive so he would row most of the times.

The colored buoys he used for markers always told him where his traps were and he would haul them in, tie the ropes to the canoe and trawl the traps back to shore. There, he would pull them ashore bulging and straining at their seams.  The very big fish he would sell to the higglers waiting, and the little fish he would take home to his children, and his neighbors’ children.

At home, he would build a fire on the makeshift grill in his back yard and roast these little fish to the delight of the children.

The fish were of various types and colors, and over the years the children had picked favorites. One of the fish was a grey thick-skinned fish, triangular in shape, two large eyes, no scales, two horny protrusions on its face and a flat white underbelly. It also had a little white mouth. The meat of this little fish was sweet and quite delicious and was a great favorite with the children. Because of the horns, the children nicknamed the fish “buck-buck.” This fish roasting became such a ritual with the children that if the fisherman was late, and he was seldom late, they would prepare the grill, sweep the area around it, arrange the benches in a circle, then they would stand at the gate and watch for his coming.

As soon as they spotted him, they would whoop in unison and race to meet him and relieve him of the crocus sack with the fish. Once the fish was in the yard, the scaling and gutting would begin. Each child would select a pile of their favorites and place them on the grill. While they waited for the fish to roast, they would giggle and move from bench to bench with excitement. The sweet aroma of roasting fish, coal and salt mingling in the warm evening air was a delirious experience. The entire atmosphere was charged.

One little girl however, was very quiet. She never ran with the others to meet the fisherman, she always sat quietly and waited till she heard their ululations which was the signal for her to get the matches and light the fire.  The fisherman sat in a corner under a huge mango tree and watched the youth dance and jig; watching them usually filled him with much joy and contentment. It was not like that tonight, he was not drinking his usual Red-Stripe beer, and instead, his eyes filled up with tears that gushed out onto his sunbaked face making a dark line through the salt on his black skin.

“What was he going to do?” he fretted.

That night when he had gone out to set his fish traps, and was sitting quietly in his canoe mending a part of the net, he suddenly felt the canoe lurch and the sea around him became agitated. Grabbing on to the side of the boat he looked up into the face of the biggest fish ever. It was man sized and was raised up out of the water and was looking at him with great interest. He wanted to fain, but fear would not grant him such a luxury. After what seemed an eternity the creature spoke,

“Why do you keep stealing my babies?” it asked,

“Babies, what babies? I must be dreaming, the fisherman’s mind ran.

The glow from his lantern rested on the huge sea creature and he could see that it was a giant buck-buck. There was the white underbelly half way out of the water.

“Answer me,” the creature growled. Its’ voice sounded wet and gurgly as if it was not used to speaking. With a great effort the fisherman exhaled, licked his lips and stammered,

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

The sea around the boat became extremely agitated and the fisherman gripped the sides of the canoe firmly with both hands.

“You are taking my babies“ the fish thing gurgled “and you will pay at the next full moon“. Suddenly the fisherman understood. This was the mother of all buck-bucks. He had heard of river mumma but never a sea mumma. Without warning, the fish jumped almost six feet into the air and splashed down overturning the canoe. With much effort he managed to right the boat and climb back in; he used the emergency oar that was lashed inside and rowed back to shore. For the next three weeks it was all he could think of. What did the creature mean when it said that “All its children must be returned? How could that happen, when his children had eaten the little fishes? “Unless? No! He could not let his mind roam that way.

So, on this evening as he sat in the corner watching the feast in progress, he dreaded the darkness that would soon cloak the dying sun. Tonight would be the first full moon since the confrontation.

There were sixteen children seated in a circle eating and laughing. Seven belonged to him. His neighbor to the right owned five; the neighbor to the left three and the little girl who always lit the fire was a visitor from another neighborhood; a very strange child. She never sat on the floor nor played in the sand box. She always read, and was only interested in reading to the other children. It was now quite dark and the fire from the grill was dying. The dancing children were casting shadows as they twirled and pranced, laughing and pointing at each other.

“You have one too,“ the small boy said as he pointed to his sister,

“Who put it on you?”

“Hey look”, another child said,” look at you! “

“Father” a boy shouted as he ran toward the fisherman who could not believe his eyes. Not only were there horns, but his sons’ face and head had become somewhat triangular. He rushed towards the fire circle, every child it seemed was in a state of transformation. They were deliriously happy as they laughed and pointed at each other.

“Stop, stop”, the fisherman screamed as a fierce wind sprang up and a huge cone filled with water circled around the children.

The spiral opened, and he saw the great fish. The   children ran gladly toward it totally transformed from their heads down to their knees. She caught them up in her great fin arms and the spiral closed. The whole thing seemed an eternity but in reality, it was only a few minutes. The fisherman stood staring at the empty wet benches. The laughing had ceased, all the children had been taken except one; the little girl who lit the fire. He rushed toward her and embraced her as he screamed for his wife Pauline.

“You escaped, you escaped“ he touched and kissed her,

“No I didn’t”, the child was defiant,” She didn’t want me“, she said and stomped her foot,” She said I didn’t like buck-buck so she left me behind.”

The fisherman’s mouth was still opened in shock. He swallowed, his moth was dry, “You never ate any buck-buck”, he asked the child incredulously!

“No, Mr. Plummer, I never liked how it looked, and it had no scales”

When his wife found him, he was face down in the dirt, saliva coming from his mouth and a thin clear secretion running from his nostrils. His body was twitching and he had wet himself.

Six months later, he was back at his trade. The doctor said he could work again only if he had help, as the activity would do him good. The police department closed the case and labeled it “mysterious”.

The little girl still lit the fire, only this time to roast corn and potatoes. She sat very still on the bench beside the fisherman. She was wondering if potatoes had a mother. She did not eat potatoes. Neither of them noticed the vine on the fence, it was looping towards the fisherman’s head.

 

THE END