“I remained silent, and let him continue, but he paused, before asking, “What do you think you are?” A short story where a maturing young man is asked to consider his narrative and place in life…
by: Trenton White
On days when the sun doesn’t set, we go fishing. That bright orb lingers along the horizon, as if it can’t decide whether to drop or not. It doesn’t follow a pattern. Most days it does go down, and we turn to our beds. But on the days when it doesn’t, we go fishing.
These outings follow a similar routine. The sun starts to set, but after a few hours of it lingering along the skyline, we gather our rods, line, spinners, and bait. Dad says that the fish get confused, and go up to the surface to figure out what’s going on, but I’m not sure I believe him. We hike out to the lake, and it takes us about an hour. It’s hard to tell time with the sun stopped though. When we reach the lake, we each take our tackle and some bait and spread out along the shore. We cast out far and reel in quick, to make sure the spinners and hook stay close to the surface. That’s what Dad taught us to do.
We spend a few hours there. Reds and pinks streak the sky. Even though it’s pretty quiet, sleep doesn’t bother us. Dad says it’s peaceful, but if I have a line in the water, my body is tense and ready. I guess that’s a sort of peace, the kind that regulates you, evens you out. Most times we catch some fish.
One day, when the sun didn’t set, Dad told me to get ready. I went to tell Zaria and Bir, but Dad said not to. It was just us going. We had never gone just the two of us before. I got the equipment ready and we set off. As we walked along the trail, silence growing between us, I wondered why he had picked me.
Leaves crunched underfoot, and in the distance an owl called out a haunting cry. Brief flurries of wind rolled through the trees and brush. Small creatures hidden in the grass skittered away as we trundled along. The whole time, Dad didn’t say anything.
After a while, we reached the edge of the lake. The sun sat across from us, its reflection bleeding into the water. Ripples from fish and frogs set the lake’s surface alight in perpetual disturbance, and we stood for a while and watched.
Finally, after some time, Dad spoke.
“You’ve grown.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. I had grown, taller than Dad now, but I still felt like a child. Instead of answering, I waited for him to say more. After a few minutes, he did.
“You may not realize, but you’ve entered a new space. A new accompaniment to your life.”
“An accompaniment?” I replied. I didn’t know what he meant.
“Yes. Your life, your trajectory, are yours to choose. Along the way, you become different companions to yourself. In your youth, you are a friend. As an adult, you become an advisor. But in between, you are something different.”
I remained silent, and let him continue, but he paused, before asking, “What do you think you are?”
Across the lake, a bird swept down into the water, sending reflections dancing across our vision. The croaks of bullfrogs filled the silence between us as I thought about his question.
“I am,” I began tentatively, “learning. I am growing. I am watching, listening, exploring.”
As I said this, Dad nodded approvingly.
“You’re becoming yourself,” he said. “You are an old youth, and a newborn adult, and everything in-between. But most importantly, now is the time that you begin to define your own narrative.”
I thought about this for a minute or so, and as I pondered those words, Dad began to ready his pole. I watched him tie the tiny knots, linking together line, spinner, and hook, before deftly twisting a worm past the barbed point. He wasn’t looking at me, but I could tell that he was waiting for me to respond. He cast out.
“My accompaniment is teacher and student,” I finally said, breaking the hiatus in our conversation. “Guide and tourist. Pastor and believer. I am a bifurcation of thought, a single person split between two roles. I am father and son.”
The faintest shadow of a smile flickered across his lips, but he didn’t say anything more. I took the hint, and readied my own tackle. This time we did not spread out along the bank. Instead, we stood side by side, and I cast out next to him. For a while, the only sound was of the birds, the frogs, the lap of water on the shore, and the gentle and constant reeling of our equipment.
Then he spoke once more.
“What is your duty in this accompaniment?”
This time I was ready.
“To find out who I am. To find out what the world is. To discover where it ends and I begin.”
“And what is more important?” He had paused now, and for the first time in our conversation, looked at me.
My brow furrowed. What was more important?
Dad reached out and grabbed my arm. I started, surprised at his urgency. His eyes bored into mine, and an intensity gripped his features.
“Nothing,” he said, still holding my arm and my gaze. “Nothing is more important. Your entire life has led up to this, and the rest of your life will reflect these days and years.”
I stared back, and now fear rose in my chest.
“But what if I make a mistake?”
At these words, the rigidity of his demeanor broke and a warm smile spread across his face.
“Not if,” he said. “But when. You will fall, many times. Others will tell you that the most important thing is to get back up. They’re only half-right. You need to get back up to keep on going, but you also need to look back to realize why you fell. Reflection will guide your efforts, but it cannot predict the future.”
I paused again; his words had not alleviated the unease that I felt.
“How will I know when I’m ready?”
He looked away again, returning to reeling in his line.
“What does it mean to be ready?” he responded. “Is it an age? An experience? An accomplishment?
For this, I had no answer, and so I let the silence take us once more, a silence broken only by the ambience of the lake. Several minutes passed in this way.
“Look.” Dad gestured towards the sun. The lower edge had just begun to dip below the treeline.
“We should finish up,” he said.
In sync, we reeled in our final casts and collected the tackle and remaining bait. We hadn’t caught any fish, but I don’t think it mattered. Before we set off, Dad fixed me with a curious look.
“What does it mean to be ready?” he asked once more. It was clear that he expected my thoughts before we headed back.
Still unsure, I glanced back across the lake, filled with ripples from thousands of different lives, each in their own moment, their own step of the mysterious journey.
“To be ready,” I said, “is to be whole.”
He looked at me, surprise etched on his face. He hadn’t expected those words. I continued.
“Ready is not a finish line, or a goal. It is a state of being, a comfortability with the past, present, and future. To be ready is to be prepared for death.”
Dad’s eyes hadn’t left mine as I spoke.
“And you?” he asked. “Are you ready for death?”
I looked away briefly, but soon returned his gaze.
“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. To my relief, this answer satisfied him.
We didn’t say any more as we packed the last of the equipment and set off. Once the sun starts to set again, you have about an hour before last light. We followed the trail away from the lake, away from the painted strokes of color spread across a watery canvas surface.
As before, we didn’t speak on the trek back home. Approaching our cabin, we could see Zaria and Bir still up, waiting for us. I paused a little ways back, and turned to Dad.
“Will I be ready?” I asked. I couldn’t help but feel like this was all too much, a towering giant of expectation that I could never climb.
He smiled back at me, and put a hand on my shoulder. His eyes caught the last of the dying light, and for a moment, they burned scarlet and orange.
“That is for you to determine,” he replied. “The weight of a thousand lives rests on your back, the curse and blessing of our ancestors. Yet only you will carve your path. We have done our part; now you must do yours.”
With that, he turned and set off towards home. I took one last look at the sun, now a low sliver peeking through the tree branches, and breathed in, then out. Then I followed him back, back to our cabin, to Zaria and Bir, to the world I’d known for so long, yet had begun to shift in terrifying and exciting ways. Back to life.
Trenton White (he/they) is a fiction writer currently living in Denver, Colorado. White spent several years as a nonprofit grant writer before turning to education programming for their professional career. They dabbled in creative writing in college, and began writing seriously in 2025. White’s stories include themes of morality, existentialism, and identity.
