MOMENT | Ashlee Lyman

The air was brisk this morning. I stepped out into it and my breath drew back into me hiding from the painful cold. The sun was just starting to bleed over the hills as I started walking up the driveway to take my trash to the dumpster. While looking down at my feet to avoid stepping in wet potholes I heard the slushy footsteps of someone coming towards me. I looked up. A man in shorts and a shirt too large for his frail body was rushing towards me. He had something in his hands that I couldn't quite make out or understand. As he closed in I noticed he was missing his teeth. There were a few white peaks in there but they were hiding behind his uncombed beard and his loose flapping lips.
I was hoping to avoid conversation but he walked right up to me in the brisk morning air and asked me,
"Do you know how to fillet a fish. I caught the nicest brookie!" he swung it around in my face. The smell was sour and of fishy death. He continued, "When it came out of the water all you could see was the red belly and the humped head."
I turned my head away from his fish and said, "Yes that is a nice fish. I don't eat fish, but that is a beautiful one."
"Do you know who can fillet a fish?" he asked.
Shaking my head I replied,
"No. I don't." and I turned to walk, indicating that the conversation was over.
He rushed passed me down the street and I stopped and turned with the white trash bag in my hand. I watched him walk away, his loose shorts swishing back and forth and his hair, long and stiff with the cold, was not moving. One of his socks was lower than the other one. I thought to myself, "He should fix his socks." and I turned back up the street to the dumpster wondering where he caught his fish so early on a January morning.