The Ice Fishing Hut – Part 1: Thin Ice

Caleb had been on the ice for six hours and had caught precisely nothing.

He sat in a tiny plywood hut on a frozen lake in northern Minnesota, with a hole in the floor, a rod in his hand and a space heater coughing out warmth. He was thirty-three, a graphic designer from Chicago, new to the town and recently divorced from the idea that he needed to be productive. The lake stretched white in every direction beneath a flat grey sky.

A knock on the door.

"You're doing it wrong," said a voice.

The man outside was thirty-six, tall, bearded, in a quilted parka and fur-lined cap, with a thermos in one gloved hand and an ice auger in the other. "Dmitri. I'm the hut a hundred yards east. I watched you from the window. Your line's too deep."

"Is it?"

"You're fishing for walleye at the pike level."

"I didn't know there were levels."

"There are always levels." Dmitri stepped inside, ducking under the lintel, and the little hut felt suddenly full. He adjusted the line. "Listen to the ice."

"Listen?"

"It talks. Hush."

They sat in silence. The ice groaned, a long low note like a whale. A crack ran away across the lake with a ping. Caleb's heart jumped.

"It's fine," said Dmitri, calmly. "It's singing."

"I thought it was breaking."

"That's the singing."

An hour later, the line twitched. Caleb gasped. Dmitri's gloved hands closed over his, steady. "Easy. Let him run. Now."

A silvery walleye came up through the hole, flapping and glistening. Caleb laughed out loud.

"Your first," said Dmitri.

"My first!"

"Beginner's luck."

"It was your hands."

"It was the fish."

"Can I ask you something?" said Caleb.

"Yes."

"Do you come out here often?"

"Every day," said Dmitri. "It's the only place I'm not lonely."

"Green?" said Caleb, a word from the fish finder.

"Green," said Dmitri, smiling slowly. "Very green. Come to my hut. I have soup."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Northern Lights.