The Big One

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Mostly I fish to get away from the world. Retirement’s like a bad cold: once you’ve got one, no one without one wants to be near you. You go off by yourself and deal with it the best you can. Since I quit work, my life’s a fulltime vacation. I fish. I listen to the news. Lots of stuff now about the aliens. Lots of worry and fuss about how can we deal with them. Do we have enough points in common to have diplomatic relations? What are their intentions?

It doesn’t help that they aren’t talking much. They show up in Washington, Paris, Brussels, and Canberra, spend some time with the governments, then spread out. Do you regular news hounds read those tacky tabloids? They’re full of alien sightings. Here’s an alien at a supermarket, they say; here’s an alien at the horse track; here’s an alien at a graveyard. Can’t tell them apart. Don’t even know how many of them there are.

I got some thoughts on the matter myself. Everyone does. But no one’s been interested in asking an old fart like me my opinion, so I pack up my gear and head for the mountains every chance I get. Let you folks deal with it. The trout are waiting and that’s all that matters to me now.

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