The

Digital

Stream

A Short Fiction

By

David A. Archer
02/15/1968

09/30/2006

When I woke that morning it was evident beyond any doubt that I was not going to work that day. It was just too beautiful, too incredible of a day to spend locked away in some dungeonsomewhere several stories above the street level.

The “cubicle” was not to fill my life
experience for the duration of this particular day. I was rather glad I had managed to stay out of prison as well, if for no other reason than being able to experience this day beyond description.

It reminded me of some days from my early teens for some reason. Maybe it was the crisp fall breeze that took me back to long days spent in wilderness areas and near rivers and streams?

Maybe it was just the fact that I had managed to remember to turn the timer on to brew coffee in the morning?

Either way, I wasn’t going to work and even more, I knew precisely what it was that I was going to do.

I was grabbing my bate and tackle and heading directly for the digital stream.

I didn’t even care If I caught anything. I might not even bait the hook.

Just the prospect of some quality time in the shade near the stream, was enough to base the decision for being absent of my professional enclosure this day.

I doubt anyone would even notice my absence from the maze of a cubicle configuration in which I seemed to exclusively exist these days. I could probably just send an email to the guy in the cubicle next to mine…. I can’t seem to recall his name at the moment… that says I am in the rest room, and no one would even think twice about it.

“In fact, I might just do that” I thought as I poured the first cup of pre-determined coffee, which really was a success from the night before.

I sent the email and then sat back in an effort to ready myself for the coming day.

It was going to be great, of that I was most sure.

Before I really knew it, there I was next to the object of my most recent thoughts and attention. It looked cool and inviting as I watched it rush by. It was clear and a person could easily see the bottom. I knew then that I probably wasn’t going to even drop in a line for some time. Just sitting there next to it for awhile would be a great start to what would have otherwise been another average, boring day.

I looked down stream about a hundred yards, and noticed that someone was already fishing away having two or three poles already gently bobbing with the pull and current of the stream itself.

“What’s bitin’ today!” I yelled through cupped hands around my otherwise rather reserved mouth.

“The usual…” he yelled back, “mostly one’s and zero’s….but now and then you get a real surprise of some over looked waste from the algorithm itself…something from farther upstream so to speak.”

“Sounds like fun!” I then yelled at my distant companion, “What are they bightin’ on?”

“Do you just want me to fish for you all day… then give you might stringer before you go?” He then replied in a manner which left a subtle confusion as to how serious he was, but was more than effective in conveying what I already knew about just wanting to enjoy the day.

“Alright” I then responded knowing it was to be the close of our conversation, at least for some time, “but don’t forget the side of fries and a medium orange beverage!”

I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t even bother responding as I then found myself considering the task of rigging my line.

“What to bait with, today” I found myself thinking as I began to tie the tiny little number zero hook, much the same way I had always tied other hooks to my fishing line throughout my youth and early adult hood. “Let’s see, here…” I then thought as I began looking around the general vicinity. “That should do it…” I then thought as I moved
toward a large stone near the streams edge and began to gently tip it so as not to let any wash of light frighten my quarry. “Yeah…” I found myself in mild celebration as I looked upon the slowly writhing subject of my present task. “They should like that…”

As I then began to bait the hook I had so carefully fastened to my fishing line with the slight squirm between my finger and thumb… I couldn’t help but feel a small rush of excitement at the coming activity of simply dropping it into the stream.

I know it sounds nerdy… kind of silly actually, but anyone that has ever experienced it knows what I am talking about.

It isn’t just the very plain and boring action of dropping a baited hook into a gurgling and fresh digital stream. It isn’t even the prospect of landing the “big one” so to speak while doing nothing but sitting next to the comforting motion of said stream, under a shade tree and dozing off. It is very much the culmination in a single moment of many things beyond the ease of human description.

It is the success of knowing that I had become much more successful in my chosen endeavor for the day, than I would have been in a hundred days at the office. It is the fact that I was correct in my superstitious suspicion that I was to be rather successful in this choice of direction for the day, when I first saw the “sign” this morning of fresh coffee waiting for me to drink in a coffee pot I had successfully set the night before, to be as such.

At this moment, it symbolized the possibility of any man in the known universe being able to feel what it must be like to be invincible, as it were. A self sufficiency with no boundaries to speak of. To know the pleasure and success of the most successful people populating the lime light, with no risk of radiation poisoning or any other sickness from such types of extended exposure to various forms of ultra-violet frequencies composing the majority of such forms of “light.”

It was definitely a culmination in motion and extended application.

I wouldn’t be surprised if I managed to catch all of the one’s and zero’s, and maybe even a few of those mysterious glitches… on this one hook… this one, now baited and obviously irresistible hook that symbolized so much in this simple moment.

It was even more I then began to realize. It symbolized even a productivity which fewer and fewer in our society to even begin to understand.

“How odd” I thought as I made the realization. I am actually participating in an activity and a plan through my day where I really have no sort of laid plans. But within that is found the most profound possibility and realized productivity.

As I let out the spool on my fishing pole to accommodate the several yards now growing between myself and the stream while I moved toward the shade tree, I happened upon another thought.

“What if I managed to hook one of my co-workers somewhere down stream? If just by accident, as I plopped this hook into the stream and placed myself against this shade tree…. I managed to ride
the current right into one of their cubicles? I know they would bite… the experience and feeling I got when I was baiting, told me that. They would be utterly helpless against the tantalizing allure of all which I knew it to be at that moment.

Should I feel bad if I did? Maybe I should just catch and release just on the off chance that in all of the possible one’s or zero’s which may happen upon my bait… it will be someone I work with?”

As I lay there watching the gentle sway of my pole in the current, I then realized another direction of thought within that previous direction; “If it is someone I work with… I hope it’s that annoying guy from the mail room… he would be fun to catch just knowing how
annoying he is….if not him… then that hot little number in accounting. Man would that be the icing on the cake! Even though she is a bit of a tease… it might make it all the more fun.”

The noon hour neared and I found myself again in jubilation of realizing where it was that I most certainly was not at this moment. I couldn’t help but smile at the simplicity of it all.

I still had a good eight hours of doing absolutely nothing I didn’t want to.

It felt good to know that most of it would be filled with naps and watching the tip of a fishing pole move in a cadence that harmonized precisely, if not exactly with that of the rest of the known universe.

Could I really have been this brilliant in following a hunch… a mystical and pre-ordained sign contained in the small success of a fresh pot of coffee sent to myself all of the way from the night before?

Man, could I set a timer!