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"You know," said Youth, "somehow it doesn't make me anxious. After all, once that fish is hooked he wants to be caught more than I want to catch him, right?"
Director smiled. "Yes. But now we're stretching the metaphor. So tell me this. Do you know what the worst thing is that you can do to that enemy fish?"
"Yes, I think I do. After a while, when I've grown tired, I cut him free, and then he swims around the rest of his life with a nasty hook in his mouth, trailing a line for all to see."
Director laughed softly. "Well my fisherman-warrior, have we found you an antidote to anxiety?"
Youth's face grew unusually hard. "Antidote suggests poison, Director. I wonder what poison I was given that made me anxious in the first place."
"Oh, friend, does it really matter?"
"I think it does."
"Why, because you want revenge on the poisoner or poisoners?"
"Seeking revenge is starting to seem like a very good way of fighting anxiety."
"You can take all the revenge you want on those enemy fish."
"But what did those enemy fish ever do to me, to me personally? Isn't revenge more sweet when it is personal?"
"I'm afraid, my friend, that you don't have a good grasp on the nature of the struggle with those fish, the quality of their evil. If you did, you would see just how sweet revenge on them truly is - as satisfying, if not more so, than the 'personal' revenge you're talking about."
"I don't see how that's possible, Director."
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Nick Pappas, pappasnick.typepad.com
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