Trout for dinner
A Saturday with an early start, an optimist friend, and a pond where nothing bites. A day without a single line of code — one that stays in memory better than many working days.
By Georg Malahov
Got up before dawn today and went fishing with a friend. We've been sitting since early morning — not a single bite. My friend, as always, keeps telling me the trout will start biting any minute now. The trouble is, whenever we go together, all the laws of physics — and of the whole fishing business — are suspended. "Don't worry," he says, "by midnight we'll definitely catch something." Time, in principle, we have — a whole day and night. I recorded that line of his as a voice note right there on the bank, so it wouldn't get lost.
We didn't have to wait until midnight: the trout eventually bit, and I came home not empty-handed. From there the day rolled on as a family day: there was a fair in town, my younger daughter got her fill of the carousels, we strolled around the square, ate ice cream, rode the swings. My wife, meanwhile, was getting ready for her photo shoot and hunting for a work outfit. My older daughter had stayed home alone and had managed to work herself into a worry that we were taking so long — we'd left the phone with her, after all. We met up with her, walked some more together, and everything evened out.
In the evening I fried the morning's trout. Two of them I decided to give to my mom — she'd promised to come by for them, took a long time coming, we'd already stopped waiting, and then she showed up after all, had dinner with us — our little trout and the salads — and took the younger one to her place for the night. Which means tomorrow is a day for just the two of us, me and my older daughter.
I've noticed that days like this hold in memory better than many working days. On weekdays everything blurs together: the screen, the tasks, the calls. But here — a cold morning, a float that doesn't move for hours, a friend with his forecasts, and in the evening, in the pan, a fish you caught yourself. Not a line of code, not a single task closed — and yet the feeling of a day lived, not spent.
The trout, by the way, was delicious. We're bringing the friend along next time too — laws of fishing or not, it's more fun with him.