A Fisherman's Tale

A man I knew liked to fish. He would go and sit at the edge of a
lake around 5 am, watch the sun filter through blackened trees and sit
in the same position for over 12 hrs catching fish, counting them and
then returning them to the lake, not leaving until the sun retired
behind the same blackened trees. All he took was a flask of coffee and
ham and brown sauce sandwiches, no book or paper. I didn't see the
point. He told me it wasn't just about fish. He said he liked being
there; watching boatmen skit across the cling film surface, balancing
their way on the drum tight skin like high wire walkers, sometimes the
surface snapped and they disappeared. His favourite lakeside visitor
was the dragonfly. He told me it was the closest prehistoric link we
had, it was the only real dinosaur. I didn't believe him. He told me he
his father was a proper fisherman but he said could never understand
how his dad could catch fish and watch them die. And then one day I
went in to work and he wasn't there, someone told me he had gone
mental. I found out he'd been sectioned and went to visit him in
hospital. He had no other visitors and I felt I had to stay longer than
I wanted. He looked all right but a bit distant. I asked him what had
happened and he said he didn't know but that something just snapped and
he was underneath, drowning, just like the boatmen.