Trout Fishing on Swamp Creek

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Swamp Creek wasn’t a swamp and it wasn’t much of a creek either, but it carried the name the way an old man carries a pocketknife—out of habit, not necessity. The water moved with the slow confidence of someone who has already lived two or three lifetimes and no longer bothers to hurry. On mornings like this, the whole place felt like a forgotten chapter from a book that never sold well but was loved by the five people who actually read it.

The trees rose like cathedral elders, tall and serious, with bark patterned in hieroglyphs written by bored insects. Their roots curled down into the green like fingers massaging an old sore memory. I sat on a mossy rise that probably had a name too, something like “Little Lookout Knob,” though no map in the world cared enough to print it.

Lily pads drifted in lazy circles. They reminded me of the thoughts that show up right before sleep: perfectly formed, perfectly useless. A trout moved beneath them—silver, shy, and shaped like the last hopeful idea of someone who has run out of hopeful ideas.

I cast my line gently, because the place demanded gentleness—anything loud would’ve been an insult. The bobber tapped the water like it was knocking on a stranger’s door, hoping they weren’t home. Nothing bit. The trout hovered below, polite but uninterested, like a clerk who already knows you can’t afford anything in the store.

I sat there long enough for the forest to forget I was human. That’s when the creek changed. It took on the mood of an old poem, the kind that smells faintly of damp paper and loneliness. For a moment I thought I could hear the faint, watery voice of some ancient fish-philosopher telling me that the trick to life was not catching anything at all.

When the sun slipped between the trees, I reeled in my empty hook and felt strangely successful. Swamp Creek had given me exactly nothing, and somehow that felt like exactly enough.

I walked back through the tall trees, leaving the water to its quiet business, thinking that maybe trout fishing is really just an excuse to let the world breathe around you—and to remember that you’re still part of it, even when you feel like you aren’t.