The next 24 hours was a blur. Zack remembered calling Donald on his way back to his apartment and asked if he could leave early. Donald told him he was in luck. He had a cancelation; he had a plane free that could leave in the morning. Zack went to a couple of outfitting and fishing stores to buy the needed equipment. The next morning at dawn he was airborne heading to Trophy Lake. The pilot mentioned he thought there were two scheduled for the trip. Zack told him a change in plans then put his earbuds in stared out the window.
Zack snapped back to reality as he narrowly missed running into the dock. Zack shook his head to refocus on the task at hand, landing the boat. He looked up at the dark cabin and then He down at his hands covered in grease and crumbs from dinner. Confused, he looked again at the dark cabin and then down to the fish in the live-well. The same fish he was just eating a few moments ago. Zack cautiously tied the boat to the dock and grabbed his fish. As he stood on the dock, he retraced his steps and froze in confusion. He was sure he already went inside, cleaned the fish, and was eating dinner. He had been completely lost in thought vividly remembering the horrific moment between Shelly and Dr. Wilson. The next thing he knew he narrowly avoided running into the dock. He looked out at the sun which we almost completely under the horizon. What in the fuck just happened he muttered to himself.
The sun was clearly down when I was eating dinner. Am I losing my damn mind? However, as he concentrated on his time making dinner in the kitchen, he found the memory was getting slipperier to hold onto. After a few moments, the idea he already went inside and was eating dinner seemed to be crazy and the memory was getting hazier. As the sun plunged below the horizon Zack convinced himself that he must have been daydreaming and lost track of time and perhaps even reality for a second.
The next day Zack woke up with a start before the sun was up. He had a feeling like something was not right. He looked around the cabin and everything was in place. The cabin was dim with the predawn light of early morning. Everything looked and smelled the same. This was his last full day of fishing. Tomorrow morning, the boat plane would arrive to pick him up and take him to back to reality. That was a sobering thought, not one he was looking forward to. He had not told anyone what had happened before he left. He didn’t speak to Shelly or his family and friends. Zack convinced himself that was probably why he felt so on edge this morning. He was not excited to deal with the whole crushing pain of loss and betrayal. During this past week of fishing, he had found a way to at least recognize he would be ok.
The idea of going home overwhelmed him with daunting task of putting his life back together as well as dealing with the aftermath of Shelly’s betrayal. He had already decided he would move out of their apartment. He was unsure what to do with Dr. Wilson. On one hand he wanted to confront him and kick his ass. However, he was his dissertation chair and had a huge influence on Zack’s next professional move. Man, fuck that guy! He had to tell his parents and friends what happened, it would be humiliating.
Of course, as the newly minted Dr. Zack Tighe he had to follow up on job opportunities. He idly wondered if he should ask for the ring back or call it a total loss. He spent a lot of money on that damn ring. Then he thought, she did not deserve the ring, fuck her. He will sell the ring and buy new fishing gear, maybe take another trip. Zack smirked to himself as he had always wanted to fish for shark.
Zack shook his head and thought, this is exactly how I lose track of time. I need to focus on the day at hand. There was still a lot of fishing to be done. First, he needed coffee. After breakfast he grabbed his gear and went down to the dock, gassed up the boat and set out for a day of fishing. He marked all the spots on the lake where he had luck on this trip. His plan was to do a tour of those spots throughout the day. Zack arrived at little bay fed by a small creek about a mile from the cabin. He shut off the outboard motor and engaged the trolling motor to work the shoreline. The sun had been up for about 20 minutes as his yellow and orange Mepps #5 hit the water for the first time of the day.
The yellow and orange #5 Mepps was his third favorite lure. Second was the common red and white Daredevil. His first favorite lure was a lure he made for his dad in shop class called Purple Pride. Zack recognized he was a fishing nerd to have an active list of his favorite lures. After few casts he noticed something was off. It was hard to pinpoint what the problem was, but something was just not right. He stopped casting and noticed for the first time that there was no wind at all. Perfectly still. Yet there were small waves, almost tiny ripples across the lake. The kind of waves you might notice if you were just glancing at a lake when driving by. However, when he looked closer, they were not acting like normal waves. The waves were not going in any particular direction. As a matter of fact, they weren’t going anywhere at all. Almost like the water was just vibrating. He reached his hand down to the water and touched it. As he did that little area he touched went still. When he moved his hand away the water resumed its vibrations. The next thing he noticed; no heat coming from the sun. Despite it showing brightly on a particularly clear morning. Normally, if you are on a boat, you can tell the direction of the sun by the heat you feel on your skin from its rays.
Finally, he noticed how quiet it was. Typically, there was a peaceful din to the lake and its wildlife in the early morning. Usually some birds chirping, water lapping against the boat or shore, and some other noises of nature. Right now, it was so quiet he could hear his heartbeat. Having an idea, he put a surface popper bass lure on his line and cast it out. As he reeled the lure in, he noticed two things that did not make sense. First, his lure lacked the rhythmic popping sounds it typically made as it rotated through the water. Second and even more concerning, the lure did not create a wake as he reeled it back to the boat.
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As the lure floated in the water next to the boat he sat down with a dumbfounded look on his face. He thought, what in the actual fuck is going on?
He was pretty sure this was not how water or physics worked. Looking around he noticed other things were not normal. When he fished the bay this past week, he spent time casting around a large tree that had fallen in the water next to the small inlet creek. It was an amazing habitat for fish. The tree fell about 30 feet into the lake. The leaves were gone but it had plenty of branches in and out of the water. The problem was the tree was simply not there. Well, that is not 100 percent correct, it was not in the water. It was however, standing tall and healthy 15 feet from shore as if it had never fallen into the lake.
Zack clearly remembered it being in the water because two days ago. He spent a significant time fishing for bass around the tree. In the process of working his lures around the tree he had a giant Northern Pike on for about twenty minutes. He got the pike to the boat twice but lost it in the tree. Along with losing the fish, he lost his favorite homemade lure, “purple pride”. The lure was a combination of a small purple spoon and a yellow spinner bait. He wasn’t sure what upset him more, losing the Pike of a lifetime or the lure that meant so much to him.
Confused, Zack worked his way back to the ginormous tree that just two days ago had been dead laying out into the lake. Everything else about the shoreline was as he remembered it. With small saplings to its right and the little low boggy area from the creek off to the left. There in the middle stood this proud majestic Cottonwood tree about 15 feet in from the shore. The area around the tree was almost as if it had been maintained by someone like a small picnic area.
As Zack pulled close to shore to get a better look at the tree. Something in the tree was shining like a reflector in the morning sun. Zack beached his boat and walked up to the tree. His jaw slacked in amazement. 15 feet up on the tree was “purple pride” with its hooks buried into the bark of its lowest limb. This was too weird for words. Zack stared disbelieving his own eyes. He sat down at the base of the tree as he began to feel dizzy. He had been through a few things in his life that were trying or at times hard to believe. But never had he ever experienced a moment that would cause him to question reality. Finding himself back in the boat last night, the weird way the lake water was behaving, the lack of heat from the sun, and now this ancient cottonwood tree standing up right in good health when just 48 hours ago it was long dead half submerged in the lake. The icing on top this fucked up cake called reality, his lure, the lure he literally lost to the tree in the lake was now snagged on its bottom limb some 15 feet in the air.
He felt both confusion and joy finding his lure still within grasp. When his line broke and lost the pike, he was sure he lost the lure as well. He could not make sense of the weird shit happening around him. Zack decided he needed a moment to get his mind right.
He thought, I need to focus on what is real and in front of me. Right now, the tree is here, and his lure is just above him. I cannot explain the waves, the sun, or the weird moment at dinner last night. Completely dumbfounded, he decided focus on what he could control. Zack got in his boat and flew across the fake waves back to the cabin. He remembered seeing an old ladder in the fish cleaning house. He was going to get that lure back.
When he got back to the shore with a ladder, he beached the boat and brought the ladder up to the tree. It was not quite long enough. Zack thought if he was careful and stood on the second to top rung, he might be able to grab his old lure. He made sure the ladder was secure against the tree and the base was dug into the dirt for stability. Slowly Zack climbed the ladder. Carefully hugging the tree, he reached up and grabbed his lure. The lure was buried pretty deep, he had to work the lure out of the bark.
When he finally had the lure out of the tree, he put it in his pocket and started working his way back down the ladder. He made it two steps and the sky light up so bright Zack was momentarily blinded. It was like someone turning on a light in a dark room. Zack flinched and felt himself sliding off to the side of the ladder and falling to the ground. Zack yelped as he closed his eyes and put his arms out to hit the ground. That’s when shit got weird again. As Zack reached his arms out, he felt something and grabbed on. Feeling disoriented he opened his eyes, and he was standing in his boat with both hands clenching the steering wheel.
Have you ever played a video game that began lagging? Your character finishes running down a hallway and the game lags and suddenly you’re at the beginning of the hallway again? That is exactly how Zack felt as he looked up staring at his lure still in the tree.
Zack yelled at the top of his lungs, "what the hell is going on, wasn’t I just crashing to the ground? That’s enough…the lure can stay in the tree that was dead and is not dead anymore. I am out of here."
As he sat down, he felt his pocket and pulled out the lure. Then he looked up at the tree and saw the same lure. Then he looked in his hand at the lure, then back to the tree, and back to the lure, this went on for quite some time before he closed his eyes and counted to 20. Steadying his breathing and focusing on the lure in his hand. Once the world seemed to stop spinning, he started the boat and slowly made his way back to the cabin.
Zack wasn’t so much afraid, as he was completely unsettled. Lost in thought he slowly drove the boat back to shore contemplating what was going on. Zack was not an earth or physical scientist. He was a social scientist; his PhD is in communication. He loved studying people and behavior. Looking for the larger trends and finding the moments that brought about change in people’s behavior.
He chuckled to himself as he thought, this felt like the beginning of those crazy LitRPG books he finally admitted to his fiancé, er well former fiancé was his guilty pleasure. Thankfully there did not seem to be any semi omniscient voices welcoming him to the system or blue status screens.
That being said, he could not in any way explain what the hell was going on. A splash of cold water woke Zack out of his reverie, and he noticed the waves were getting bigger as the wind picked up. Zack stopped the boat and looked around, wind? Waves? He looked out at the lake for the first time and noticed the water was behaving normally again. Suddenly there were clouds in the sky. It looked like rain was coming from the west and the wind picked up. Oddly this made Zack feel a whole lot better. He put the boat back into gear and went back to his cabin. As he got out of the rain he dried off and made a cup of coffee and stared across the lake. If seven days ago was the worst day of his life, the last 24 hours certainly was the weirdest.