The story
The bass came close enough for me to see a pale scar along its flank. It was not the giant I had imagined at breakfast. It was better: a particular fish, in a particular patch of water, with a history I would never know.
I crouched at the edge while the canoe rested against the reeds. For a moment the fish stayed beside my hands. Then its tail moved with sudden certainty and the shape dissolved into the roots. The river seemed to fold over the space it had occupied.
There was no photograph in my notebook, only a quick sketch of the tail and the words I had been trying to find all week. I closed the tin, rinsed the mud from my boots and began the slow paddle home.
The memory is the souvenir; the river keeps its resident.