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Craaaaack!
Alas, Nicolas has fallen sick from the toll of schooling life. He doesn’t think this is so though. He feels it is more of a sign of weakness, that his body is unable to resist the foreign pathogens that invade his frail body, and eventually his mind.
Now he lays at home bed ridden and thinking to himself, why he is in such a sorry state. And he has thought hard and he has come up with a little anecdote he would like to share with all:
There was a fishing rod. It was a beautifully-crafted fishing rod that took months of blood and sweat to complete. He walked into the store that had aisles and aisles of fishing rods. He looked around, awestruck by the sheer number of rods that peeked out at him. Each one seemed to call in perfect harmony; it was a symphony of agony. They wanted to be liberated from the wires that held them in place.
But there was this one rod that drew his eyes to it. “It is amazing”, he thought, as he ran his fingers down the smooth curvature of the fishing rod, pausing at slight moments to feel the tingle run down spine. He wrapped both his hands around the handle of the fishing rod and gripped it hard. It gave him security… and at that moment he decided that he needed it so.
They spent countless months and years together; they were meant to be together. On fishing trips, the rod brought him much joy as he pulled aboard fish after fish that he sold for a substantial amount --- it kept his life going. After every fishing trip, he brought the rod home and polished it ever so carefully, admiring the gloss and shine of its body. He smiled, and he saw his smile through the reflection on the rod.
One day, he brought the fishing rod on yet another fishing trip. He had long regarded his fishing trips as adventures where he could put his skills to good use and fight long battles with fish that struggled mercilessly at the end of the fishing wire.
But today was different. He had set up the fishing road at the end of his boat and waited patiently for the fish to bite. One hour, two hours, three hours… usually it did not take that long for the fish to bite.
He didn’t want to give up and return home empty handed, and waited it out. His eyelids had started to droop as he lay lazily on his chair. Then he heard a buzz. The reel of his fishing rod and started to turn and with each passing second, it whirled faster and faster! He squinted at the reel, thinking to himself if it was true, that a fish was indeed biting. The revolutions of the reel put him in a trance and he shook his head violently to snap out of it. He rushed forward and gripped the handle of his fishing rod and started reeling in the line, turning the reel at periodic intervals. “Damn,” he thought, “this fish is strong.” The fish tugged and tugged and tugged while he fought as hard as he could.
Then he heard a crack. An angry zigzag scar raced down the body of his fishing rod. It could take no more of the pulling. Thoughts raced through his mind, the times they had spent together, the day they first met, would his time with his fishing rod end right now?
There were only two things he could do; cut the line of his fishing rod and risk damaging it, or fight on at the expense of losing his beloved. He closed his eyes in deep meditation, the only tension coming from his arms that held on dearly to his fishing rod. In fact, his hands held on to two lives; one that wanted to be saved, and one that needed to be saved.
Everything froze at that moment.
Hail Mary.