SILENCE.

So, always being the good samaritan, I offered him one of my flies that had proven itself the miracle of the season: my famous scarab. To my great surprise he didn’t even take the trouble to look at me, nor to respond.  I thought that perhaps he was excessively timid. I was ready to do an about face when he turned toward me and, surprised by my presence, he uttered a phrase that sounded like: “Ourmf…ourf… Greu… Grrr.”

I quickly realized that the guy in question was deaf and dumb and that those sounds that came from his throat, resembling water running down a drain, were all that the poor soul could offer as conversation.

I opened my metal box of flies that contained the invincible scarab and offered him one.

After a few croakings he accepted my offer with a big smile. I’m here to tell you that I have never seen anything as luminous and sincere as his sunny smile (except, of course, for that of my wife). It was the kind of smile that that I saw as a kid when my christian friends had first communion cards with beaming cherubs, gold glitter and the good lord saying: “Hello!” with a gesture to invite you to refrain from messing around with young girls until anointed by a priest at the alter.

Naturally, we fished together like two old friends, I showed him the best spots in my river and he clucked and croaked like a family of happy frogs savoring a delicious dessert of flies.

We spent an afternoon of pure delight, one of those rare moments of silence and perfect harmony. The next day I returned, in the hopes of seeing my deaf and dumb friend and enjoy again, rich hours of peace. I found, instead, two confusingly ugly guys who, each time they missed a fish, would squeal like pigs having their throats slit. I finally reached the riverbank where their wives encouraged them while listening to “Europe 1” as loud as possible and smacking their howling kids

Even when I reached the other side of the river, way below past the bend, I could still hear the flow of nonsense, each more one vulgar than the other… vanished, the sweet silence of yesterday… gone, the almost zen harmony; with rage in my heart I packed up my gear and returned home to my wife for consolation (she does it so well!) and to a bottle of Cotes du Rhone.

Dear readers, if, by the greatest coincidence, you know a deaf and dumb fly fisherman, I beg you to leave me his address at the office of le Mouching who will in turn pass it on to me. My mental health depends on it…