Tug on the Line

            Alma was lying in bed during those rich hours of the early morning when she dreamed she was on a riverbank in her childhood town.  It was some kind of political party picnic or convention, and her father had on a straw boater, all the men did, only he didn't believe that she could catch a big fish by leaving her tiny sunfish jumping on the hook.  He thought she should toss it back.  But she sent it sailing out across the water, a perfect cast, and the surface gulped the spiny little fish and sinkers, and almost immediately, the thin white pole buckled as if it would snap, and the line tugged down with a frantic rhythm as the reel whirred and she spun it around.

            Everyone cheered and the boy next to her seemed grudgingly impressed by the way she kept the little black handle twirling like an egg beater's, and lifted her long, fat, magnificent fish toward the surface of the water, still fighting.  The pulse of its struggle ran up through the nylon line into her hands and wrists and became a throbbing tattoo in her temple, and at that moment the aneurism occurred; her father was congratulating her and an air bubble passed into her brain and everything stopped