The pink buoy was visible from almost everywhere in Orchid Bay. I had used it as a landmark for years without once stopping beside it. Tonight its chain made a soft clicking sound that drew me closer than the colour ever had.
I clipped a pink cork float onto an otherwise ordinary rig. Against the blue water it looked like a tiny second buoy. The two bobbed together until the smaller one began moving sideways, against the current.
The harbour changes frequency
A bass had taken the lure into the shadow of the chain. I let the boat drift instead of pulling straight back. The line cleared the metal with an unpleasant little scrape. Then the fish rushed into open water, leaving both pink markers behind.
It surfaced near the stern, thick across the back and indignantly beautiful. I released it beside the buoy and stayed to watch the chain settle. In the dispatch I gave the bright marker one sentence. The quiet water beneath it got three paragraphs.
A landmark can be a destination if you stop passing it.
