Jan Gunnar Retires from the Sea

Twice he was sunk in Lofoten. We’re talking in the kitchen with three windows like dark slides. There’s nothing out there but the pulse of the lighthouse.
       The first time he drowned, it was just around the corner. A shallow fjord, summertime, the water was almost warm. The boys might be laughing. It was easy to swim ashore.
       But the time he was caught in the net, half way between Svalbard and Lofoten. That was no laughing matter. They were spooling it overboard. The ship lit up like a stadium in driving rain. Besides cod, they were hunting for rorqual but it was Jan Gunnar who ended up in the net.
       It’s warm in the kitchen. Grethe pours another cup of coffee, puts a slice of cake before him — the cake she made from my bananas. Nearly black, she says, like frostbitten toes.
       Jan Gunnar tells the rest of the story: the skipper heard him shout. Yanked on the brake, reverse, reverse, up he came with the whir of the motor. What a strange catch; Jan Gunnar crying like a turtle. They warmed him up with jutters-bitter. The ship as bright as a stadium in driving rain.
       They caught four rorqual after that — brains twice the size of the crew. It took a whole day to cut them into blocks. Yellow boots, warm blubber, thin blood hosed down with ocean water.
       The third time he drowned, his wife said she’d leave him if he didn’t give it up. So he’s a farmer now, milking cows. Out the window, I see the lighthouse of Skrova. It has a strange pulse. Just when you think you’ll never see it again, it comes hurtling around.
       He’s taken care of the mice. He’s eating another slice of cake. There’s a chart on the wall with twelve species of whale. He points to the ones he’s caught.

Laurence O’Dwyer | Avicenna’s Floating Man
Contents | Mudlark No. 79 (2024)