The Hook and the Net

     Cody stepped off the bus, his Dad’s worn, darker work boots hitting the ground—a small attempt to find stability after he got out. But instead, his tests had shown positive results for a special program called “Cannon Fodder.”
He didn’t much like the title, but given his current situation, he wasn’t in a position to argue. 

In the rural sticks of the West Coast, a fishing village in the middle of nowhere called Vancouver, War-shing-ton, he was home.

 The dust clouded his sight as the bus pulled away, continuing its circuit before the day was over.

 After a mile’s walk from the bus station, he saw the quiet fishing hut where he’d grown up in the distance.

 “Cody? Is that you?” came a familiar voice.

 Age had weathered the man from head to toe, and a straw hat hung by a string to the side. A fishing pole rested over the old man’s shoulder. “Well, I’ll be, as I live and breathe! Thought you died, I did.” 

 “Sturgeon, you old geezer, good to see ya. I—”
Cody paused as he noticed the wooden peg replacing his old friend’s left leg.

 Sturgeon rubbed his bald scalp, smiling as if he’d goofed. “Yeah, lost it on a maintenance run. The Vatican Paladin came outta nowhere… but I lived. Not my first time swimmin’ up shit creek without a paddle.”

 Cody rested a hand on the man’s shoulder. Sturgeon had tried everything he could to teach Cody about maintenance runs, but Cody was never the mechanic type. “I’m just passing through,” Cody said. “Wanted to tell Mom hi before I left. Is… is Rane Sam—”

 “Married, I’m afraid,” Sturgeon said, looking away. Cody forced a smile to hide the hurt and walked on, feeling a hand rest on his shoulder.
“The world moves on without you,” Sturgeon said gently. “Plenty of fish in the sea, Cody, you old salty cod.”
 But Cody wasn’t trying to hear that. The love of his life would never be his.

 His mother was older than he remembered—a hunched back, a cane that could double as a fishing pole—but despite her frailty, she rose from her rocking chair, trembling with effort. Then she rushed to him, tears streaming down her cheeks, her arms open as the cane clattered to the side.

 Cody hugged his mother, feeling a lump in his throat that made words impossible. He held her gently, holding back his tears. "When did she get so old?" he thought.

 His mother wailed in his ear, making a scene in the small fishing village where nothing ever happened. But no one intervened, knowing a mother’s love is a mother’s love. Even if some hated Cody, even if the saying goes, “Loud noise’ll scare the fish,” the two were ignored.

Cody almost broke down into tears as he tasted the memories of his past at the dinner table: a salty bowl of rice and fish. Simple yet true—fresh-caught could never be replaced by canned or preserved.

 “Did you check in yet?” his mother asked.

 “On the way home, Mother,” Cody replied.

 “Well, War-shing-ton hasn’t changed much since you left. How long ya stayin’?”

 “I leave in the morning for a job.”

 “You wrote about yer optical lens stuff… so, yer gonna be a crafter, city folk far away from our kin. Do visit. These old bones ain’t know if they can swim up a waterfall many more winters.”

 “Actually… they want me to serve.”

 The spoon fell from his mother’s already shaky, liver-spotted hands. Her eyes filled with horror, her mouth ajar.

 “It’s good money, Ma, we could—”

 “They took my baby once, now they chew him up, spit him out, and use him as chum! Nuh-uh! Not my baby! They—”

 “Momma, I gotta! I got the sight!” Cody almost stopped speaking as his accent slipped out—a past he wished to forget.

 “So yer gonna be in one?! Yer thirty-seven years old, Cody! You ain’t leaping outta the water no more!”

 “I have to, Ma!”

 “Trying to scare the fish away!” she shouted back.

 Cody stilled his tongue, realizing he was raising his voice. Despite the hypocrisy of his mother shouting louder than him, he knew when to shut up.

 Cody finished his meal and was about to head to his old bed, but his mother stopped him. “You go on now, Cody. As far as I’m concerned, you’re already on the hook.”

 Cody felt his heart sink as he looked at his mother, who refused to lift her eyes from the ground. He understood. Leaving the only home he ever knew, he did not look back.

 Not even when the girl of his memories called out in the evening dusk, he did not look back. Not even for Rane Boe Samone.

 Her soft hand grabbed the sleeve of his button-up. Her accent grew thicker, her voice as beautiful as ever.

 “Not even goodbyes? Now I know yer—”

He couldn’t listen. Jerking his hand away, he said,
“Gonna wake the fish… as my mom already told me. I’m on the hook.”
Before she could speak, he explained, “There’s a program called Cannon Fodder for people like me. I’m gonna pilot an EM-you. Far as I’m concerned, I’m in the net already…”He paused before continuing, “I wanted to say…”
But the words wouldn’t come out. He stepped away, tears streaming down his cheeks as a numbness washed over him.
It was going to be a long wait at the bus stop and an even longer ride to the city.

As he sat on that bench, the cold numbness clung to him like shell shock. Rane Sam, Momma Guppy… he never did visit his father across the river in that fishing town, Portland, Oar-gone. He wondered if his father was still alive to this day.
The saying goes, “You’ll wake the fish with all that noise.” It means shut the hell up. Usually, people on the West Coast were soft-spoken because of this. The entire West Coast had been reduced to fishing villages when Hollywood failed to take off.
But that was ancient history. When the world war made the Nazis idolized, a terrorist group during the Cold War rose and nearly incited civil war in the United States. They killed off major figures in the media to fuel their prejudiced terror. Illustrators, authors, film directors, actors—no one saw these atrocities coming. No one expected the entertainment industry to be their targets. Bankers, lawyers, political figures, maybe. But media?
Some say it was the collapse of the entire West Coast. Some say it could have been like the East, all city-like, with skyscrapers as far as the eye can see and neon lighting. I would say I prefer the quiet. And for the entire East Coast of the U.S., I say, “You’ll wake the fish. Read a manga.”