Go see your friend, or maybe it's your mother."
The old man wiped the blade of his knife and laid down the oar. Then he found the sheet and the sail filled and he brought the skiff onto her course.
"They must have taken a quarter of him and of the best meat," he said aloud.
"I wish it were a dream and that I had never hooked him.
I'm sorry about it, fish.
It makes everything wrong." He stopped and he did not want to look at the fish now.
Drained of blood and awash he looked the colour of the silver backing of a mirror and his stripes still showed.
"I shouldn't have gone out so far, fish," he said. "Neither for you nor for me. I'm sorry, fish."
Now, he said to himself. Look to the lashing on the knife and see if it has been cut. Then get your hand in order because there still is more to come.
"I wish I had a stone for the knife," the old man said after he had checked the lashing on the oar butt.