Fish Kill and Other Modern Day Fables
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The blue green water of the Caribbean Sea was serene. The canoe rocked gently in the waves as the lone fisherman looked out eagle-eyed, for the tell-tale signs of fish. Jakey, short for Jakes, was no Jacques Cousteau, but he was as old a salt of the sea as any. He was a thin wiry man with bronzed wrinkled skin from his countless encounters with the shade-less skies. His crop of hair was bright red, from the bleaching effect of sun and sea, while his skin was the colour of chocolate. He stood steadily in the boat and shaded his eyes to look for the large shimmer of a school of parrot fish, the favourite eating fish of the Hellshire crowd. In his hand he held a stick of dynamite, illegal but quite effective for his purpose. What did he care about damage to reefs and all that ‘crap’. He had two greedy baby mothers and twelve children to support. He also had to pay back the Co-op for the cost of his secondhand boat engine and of course he had to be able to be a man and buy the fellows a drink at Friday night domino game. What was that he noted, the first evidence of a ripple and then he saw what he had been searching for all morning, a large school of parrot fish. He waited until they came near enough and then lit the fuse. The dynamite sailed through the air and fell accurately in the middle of the school with an imperceptible ‘ploop’. About three hundred yards away, the tiger shark swam lazily swinging his large tail from side to side, in the constant effort to stay afloat and keep water rushing through his gills. The shark was hungry, he had not eaten for two days and the hunger pangs were now sending harsh signals to his tiny brain. Although his eyesight was fairly good, his main senses were his acute sense of smell, which could detect one drop of blood in a million parts of sea water, and his lateral lines which could detect the faintest vibration of a struggling fish, from a hundred yards away. The shark felt the unusual vibration as the detonation of the dynamite sent shock waves through the water from two hundred yards away.
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About the Book
Written by Jamaican native Horace Fletcher, Fish Kill and Other Modern Day Fables presents a series of fables that encompass day-to-day life experiences and conclude with surprise endings to emphasize the unseen consequences of life’s choices. Combining vivid imagery with lyrical prose, Fletcher paints an intimate picture of the human experience often hidden from view. From the blue, crystal waters of the Caribbean to a rural Mexican village, Fletcher delves into the deepest of human emotions. In “Rat Race,” a laboratory technician’s animal experiments take a wrong turn, while a case of mistaken identity causes serious consequences in “Dead Ringer.” Fletcher enters the world of science fiction in “Earth Invasion,” and “Bleeding Hearts” features a police chief trying to solve a baffling crime. Each story offers a unique lesson, one that challenges us to examine the daily decisions we make and how they affect those around us. Insightful and eclectic, Fish Kill and Other Modern Day Fables will compel you to stop and think about how you interact with the Earth and its other inhabitants.
About the Author
Horace Fletcher is a Jamaican university professor of obstetrics and gynecology. He has taught at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica for the last twenty years. Fletcher has published over eighty scientific manuscripts in medical journals.