The Gorko Gazette

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9.4.2026 4:27 AM

The Old Fisherman by James Callan

The Old Fisherman

After Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka

The fishwives talk, and they have plenty to say, but in this, they swear to the Lord: the old fisherman spent his life on the sea, a virgin to land and horizon. He’s Neptune’s brood. A seaborn whelp. A mermaid’s child. The thrall of a siren. He commands the wind. The waves. The tides. He’s a gull! He was Morvoren’s first kiss when Edison studied by candlelight. He hauled in a whale, a calf the size of a cow. It was a feat. It was a fluke. He made a sail from its rubbery hide and drums from its blubbery heart. He wore the blowhole like a dog collar. He barked at the moon. He kept the eyeballs for keepsakes, fastening them on either side of the bow. He angled two ribs like downward, menacing brows. He named his boat Bowhead. He married the cow, living off her milk for six months.

The fishwives talk, and they have plenty to say, but in this, they swear by sweet Christ: the old fisherman rose from aquatic halls, baloney from the South Sandwich Trench. He’s a flying fish. An eagle ray. A red knot riding the Canary Current. His beard is foam off the rocks of Yamagata. His locks are the chains of anchors. He was birthed by a shark, or maybe a ray. A dolphin’s miscarriage. The aborted mistake of Amphitrite. He has coral bones and a cartilage heart. He has three rows of teeth that are shaped like lateens. There are gills lurking beneath his collar. His soul is salt, and he will turn you to stone with a stare. Before he became a fisherman, he was a florist on the corner. The man could make a mean bouquet!

The fishwives talk, and they have plenty to say, but in this, they swear on their beads: the old fisherman dove to the bottom of the sea, claiming the crown of Atlantis. He has pearls the size of Solomon coconuts. Opals that gleam like starlit lagoons. He has 10,000 barrels of Madeira wine. A parrotfish perched on his shoulder. He has plenty to be grateful for, but he never seems to smile. He has seen the ultimate sunset—flames on Golden Bay. He wept to witness the fire on the water, Vulcan at war with Oceanus. Dorsal fins rose like dying embers, and dusk burned to ash. A witch at the stake in the wake of his final trawl. His nets were burdened with emptiness. Darkness settled, and the evening screamed. His tide was receding. The final stroke on a seascape painting. A mosaic of sea glass and shellcraft. The land, at last, called the seadog ashore.

The fishwives talk, and they have plenty to say, but in this, they shut their damned mouths: the old fisherman moored—Bowhead with eyes like black beach balls, whirlpools spiraling to hell. He walked the dock with sea legs like a drunkard, like a toddler. Like a seal in a circus, he made everyone laugh. His face was cragged like the coastal cliffs of Moher. He wrung his hands in mystic prayer. He purchased pilchards, paying with foreign coins. He ate stargazy pie, gazing at stars in the cemetery. He gathered wildflowers by the side of the road, and, arranging them beautifully, placed them by the headstone of his daughter, whom no one else had remembered.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

James Callan lives and writes in Aotearoa (New Zealand). His fiction has appeared in Apocalypse Confidential, Burial Magazine, X-R-A-Y, Reckon Review, Mystery Tribune, and elsewhere. His collection, Those Who Remain Quiet, is available from Anxiety Press.