JB Life! Volume 2 (Spring 2016)

to open water. Of course, he thought. Ramming speed.
He drove his paddles back down into the water swiftly,
sliding up the little channel he had made. Once in a while his
paddle slipped over the ice rather than breaking through it.
It was hardly top speed, but when he reached the end of his
channel the kayak’s momentum slid him atop the ice, where
the boat slid another 10 meters. He laughed, thinking of a
loud, orange plastic otter before he ground to a crunchy halt.
There were two people standing on the shore now. Surely
they thought he had lost his mind. Maybe they thought he
was trying to reach them. But they were still a good 800
meters away. And even if he could reach them they probably
didn’t speak English. Even if they did, they might not want
to talk to someone so obviously insane. Who knows what
they could talk about, but the icebreaker was already out of
the way.
He reversed his kayak again down his channel and took
a photograph of his freshly carved and hard-won canal. Just
for kicks, he uploaded it to Facebook on the spot.
Even I think I’m crazy, he chuckled to himself.
About halfway back out of his ice canal, he checked his
watch and decided that his seven minutes of insanity disturbing
the peace was done. He had an English lesson at two
that afternoon and it was getting on 12.
Time to polish off this second tall boy, row back and get
home in time for lunch and a quick shower.
He dug his paddle into the water and, just below the surface,
he hit something, but it was not the hard, scratchy sensation
of ice.
It was like rubber or perhaps wood, but on contact within,
his paddle jerked forward. He had been reversing, but the
forward snapping motion seemed to double his speed in reverse.
Whatever it was he had hit, it was moving!
“What was that?!” he exclaimed aloud, and heard his own
voice echo from the mountains.
Heart pounding, he jammed his paddle the full length into
the depths and felt nothing but empty water. He froze. He
sat perfectly still in his boat, hearing only the sound of the
distant ducks and the ice scratching gently on the one side
where the wind was pushing him against the unbroken ice.
There were no ripples in the water. There were no bubbles
under the ice or rippling surge on the thin ice like his kayak
had caused only moments before. Everything was placid.
Tranquil. He sat frozen,but his heart was pounding. He
knew that whatever had hit his paddle was big, with terrifying
attributes of size and momentum
“I must’ve hit a carp right on the back ... or a big bass,”
he reasoned to himself. Looking over into the inky darkness,
he saw nothing. His previously mild desire to relieve
his bladder was now quite a priority. Still he sat motionless,
skimming the surface of the ice and open water for any signs
of motion beneath. There was nothing. Slowly scanning
around him in a full 360° survey, one of the clips of his lifejacket
fell against his boat, causing her ever so slight thump.
He jolted with fright at the sound. Then he began to laugh
at himself, ruminating on countless afternoons out here on
the reservoir, the fishing boats, the kayakers, the students he
had taken out, the friends. The largest fish he’d ever seen
in these waters was indeed a carp, almost 3 feet long. He
laughed out loud and even scolded himself for being so easily
spooked. The next sound was the crack open of a beer
can, a tallboy of dark beer, ice cold out in the sun with no
need of a cooler, and he slugged the entire can back without
a break for air.
Expelling a long, throaty “Ahhhhh!” an overwhelming
urge to urinate suddenly demanded his full attention.
There is a trick of balance to achieve that point where you
neither piss in your small craft, nor on yourself, along with
ensuring you don’t fall out of it. Balancing himself in the
boat carefully, he struggled to his knees and slowly acquired
balance precariously with his knees on the gunwale so that
he could relieve himself over the side of the boat.
“Sorry about the little bump, Nessy!” he quipped, balancing
on his knees and unzipping his trousers to relieve
himself. “Had I known you were down there, I wouldn’t of
bonked to you on the head!”
Chuckling at his own foolishness, and welcoming the
warm buzz of the beer he had just finished, blissfully compounded
by the relief of peeing over the side of his small
craft, he sighed heavily, and emoted aloud, “Ah.... 쳤다!”
Hypnotized by the sprinkling sound and the site of little
yellow balls of urine rolling over the surface of the water, he
breathed in deeply, absorbing the solitude.
The streaming tinkle of his urine reduced to a few drops,
and was finally punctuated by a loud bang as something
very large struck the bottom of his kayak behind him, propelling
him sprawling forward. Splash!
Panicking, dog-padding, choking, sputtering, the ice
in his mouth tasting very alive, he frantically tried to pull
his phone out of his upper left vest pocket to raise it out of
the water, cursing himself for removing it from the waterproof
case just a few minutes ago. Holding the phone over
his head and paddling and kicking with just three limbs, he
turned toward his kayak, and sputtered, “What the hel--”
just as long, needle-sharp teeth dug into his calf muscles and
shins, yanking him under with a final abruptness.
He saw his orange kayak a few meters above him, through
the dark frigid silence, swirling with clouds of his own crimson
life.
By MANNY HUGHES
American Expat
Jeonbuk Life 31