STEPPING CAREFULLY

Early this morning before my son Tommy wakes up, I make my way down the path from the cottage to the beach with a cup of coffee in my right hand. With the other hand I cover the top of the cup to keep out the clouds of tiny bugs fluttering around. Abruptly I stop and sniff. After rounding the bend in the needle-covered path to the beach and breathing-in the pungent smell of the cedars that have been here since I was a child, I sniff a different odor, a putrid one. “Phew! Disgusting smell,” I whisper to myself, not wanting to break the pristine morning silence. Then I recognize the smell. It’s the stench of something decaying, the slow rotting of an animal body. Until I reach the beach, I can’t locate the ominous smell. Then I see the source. And there it is, just ahead of me smack in the middle of the path... nothing but a decaying fish. Finding dead fish on the beach isn’t all that uncommon, but this one, about two and a half feet long with its gaping mouth of ferocious teeth, has a stick piercing straight through its abdomen and the stick thrust upright in the sandy path. It appears to be a Pike placed here quite intentionally. Is it really deliberate or am I being overly suspicious? I hold my nose and mutter nasally, “At least it’s not a human body.” Is this decaying, skewered fish supposed to convey some sort of message? Is it meant to be a warning to me, a threat like a severed head on a pole? Yet, a stinky fish is hardly something to make one shake, or shiver, or even spill their coffee. Though the incident is not too serious, it does show me exactly how close to the cottage someone can trespass without my even knowing a stranger is around. Walking from my father’s old white cottage down to the beach is my usual morning ritual here at Tatterack. I feel that the beach is my own personal sanctuary, and I always try to visit it before the church, situated a block away, begins its morning cacophony of bells. The pseudo bells from the church with their freaky electronic sounds will strike the morning with a hammer blow, and override all the natural sounds including the lovely susurrations of the water.