a slight case of hooky

For the second day in a row, I took my lunch on the pond near here. The roadside bank is lined with gleaming cars, half of which contain commuters who have stolen away for a few moments from the office’s florescent hum, to sit behind the wheel and munch on sandwiches.

Such was my custom until today. As I did yesterday, today I strolled around the little lake, but this time took my lunch with me. I sat at picnic tables opposite the cars, and stared across the water at the fishermen and fisherwomen and their frolicking fisherdogs. I finished my lunch at a leisurely pace, and then finished my circuit at a still more leisurely pace, pausing to watch two ducks ducking about among the duckweed, darting through the dark water beneath the low hanging branches at the bottom of my escarpment. They couldn’t have failed to detect me, for the gravel path crunches out my progress no matter how carefully I tread, as though nature was so quiet before I arrived that my passage is Big Happenings; thus I am watched.

The afternoon beckons me to stay; not to labor or even to play, but to join all the fisherpeople at the substance of their enterprise, and to excel them in all its finer aspects save in the actual catching of any fish. And if you’re reading this, my plan for playing hooky was put away at length; it never really amounted to a plan in any case, but just a fetching wish.