Somebody else will have to go out there

Sometimes, to amuse myself, I pick up Trout Fishing in America and flip to a random chapter. Tonight I flipped to the perfect chapter. It is called “Trout Fishing on the Street of Eternity” and in it Brautigan describes a trout fishing diary he found that was written by a boy who died of a strange ailment in his youth. The last page of the diary had an epitaph, which Brautigan paraphrased this way:

“I’ve had it.

I’ve gone fishing now for seven years

and I haven’t caught a single trout.

I’ve lost every trout I ever hooked.

They either jump off

or twist off.

or squirm off

or break my leader

or flop off

or fuck off.

I have never even gotten my hands on a

trout.

For all its frustration,

I believe it was an interesting experiment

in total loss

but next year somebody else

will have to go trout fishing.

Somebody else will have to go

out there.”

It’s rare that I find something simultaneously hilarious and poignant, but this did it. I’ve re-read it many times.