The moonlight danced across the ripples of Bogue Sound. The wind howled out of the south and the windchimes scampered around on their strings. Tranquility washed over me as I slid my leather flip flops off and sank to the cool cement below. One hand on my fishing rod and the other on the cleat next to me, I patiently waited for the telltale tug of a large flounder. The dock at the end of Shackleford Road had produced many large fish before, but tonight I was searching for the notorious large flounder that had been haunting my dreams ever since I saw it engulf my lure and promptly broke my line, some five years ago. Picking up my bait, I decided that I should try one of the fresher minnows I had saved from a previous outing. The translucent mud minnow panicked in my hand as I slipped the snelled hook through his nose and dispatched him into the murky depths below. A few more hours went by and all I had caught were a few small flounder and a boatload of lizardfish. Hooking on my last minnow, an obese one with which I looked up into the stary night and prayed that I could entice the flounder of my dreams. The lights in my grandmother’s house flipped on and off, signaling that it was time for me to return to the relative safety of the house. I reached for my reel when my rod doubled over and the line screamed off my reel like a runaway freight train. My rod strained under the pressure as I tried to turn the fish away from the barnacle-encrusted pilings. My rod bounced with each shake of the fish’s head as it tried to unhook itself. My rod doubled over for its final time as I managed to bring the fish into view. There it was. The fish I had yearned for lay just out of reach at the base of the dock. The dark brown silhouette quickly lurched back into the water and disappeared into the depths below. The rod bowed one more time until the crisp crack of the line breaking signaled my ultimate defeat. The monstrous flounder returned to the depths of my dreams to haunt me for another year until I could be able to pursue him once again.
