Marvin

Another perfectly good California day, wasted. The light was slowly dying as Devin and his friends decided to call it a day. Devin was just an average high school student looking for that perfect fish before school started back up. Ever since he first saw Marvin they had been fishing for him. It was a warm summers night much like this one and they all decided to go fishing. They were catching a lot of fish but they were all very tiny sunfish and bluegill. Devin had his line in the water as his friends were baiting their hooks for the millionth time. Devin caught a small sunfish, as he had been expecting and slowly reeled it in, just to play with him. He was getting closer and closer to the dock when all of the sudden the fish just stopped, as if he were playing dead. Devin thought this was a peculiar thing to do considering he had never known of fish doing such a thing and they were in very shallow waters, when all of the sudden, the biggest bass he had ever seen came shooting out from underneath the dock and ate the sunfish in one big gulp. The line immediately snapped and the fish went back under the dock. Nobody else saw him but Devin knew he was there. He didn’t see him for very long but he knew that he was easily over two and a half feet, probably three. He was fat too, looked to be roughly thirty pounds. He knew he was a bass because of his deep green skin and the rounded square dots along his side. The bass’ mouth was also huge, sucking in the sunfish in one easy swallow. He was considerably stronger than any other fish in the lake, Nothing had ever come close to breaking his line like that before and the bass ripped it like it was made of paper. The only thing Devin could think to call him was mega fish when he first saw him, but he thought that was weird so he now calls him Marvin. So now, here he was, nearly two months later, fishing in the same spot at every chance he got, looking for Marvin. Some days he would catch a lot of fish, others he caught nothing. Some days his friends came to help, others it was just him but nothing would stop him from getting this fish. This particular night there was still about ten minutes left of light sufficient for fishing and Devin was going to use all the time he had. He had just caught a sunfish and did his best to reel it in the same way he did the first time he saw Marvin, when all of the sudden, the fish stopped. Devin froze when he noticed this and waited. He waited for a minute as the tension grew and as the fish started to move more and more until he was once again swimming frantically trying to escape the hook so Devin brought him up on the dock, got the hook out and threw him back in the water. Devin was going to call it quits when he saw the most amazing thing he had ever witnessed. The small sunfish was falling towards the surface of the water, but before he went back in Marvin jumped into the air and snatched the fish before crashing back under the surface. The breach looked like a shark jumping out of the ocean to get a seal. Marvin had grown, slightly. He was a little longer, and fatter. He had become sluggish and was now coming back towards the dock at a very slow pace. Marvin was not hooked because Devin was just throwing the fish back in, so there was only one thing to do, he jumped in after him. He grabbed him right away but Marvin was very slimy and slipped right out. He was like a bar of soap, if Devin kept up this strategy he wouldn’t do too well. He would also end up very stinky, his hands now smelled like, well, fish. But it was a stronger fish smell than he had ever smelled. It was like he was in a fish market times ten. Marvin bolted away at a pace one hundred times faster than Devin expected. It was like a sprinter shooting off the blocks, and he stopped just as fast as he had started, but none of this deterred Devin. He slowly approached Marvin who had now returned to his original pace. Devin went at angles without staring at the enormous fish so as not to attract attention to his intention of capturing Marvin. Devin made another lunge at the fish, but aimed one of his hands at the fish’s mouth so he had something to grab onto. He successfully got a grip on Marvin’s bottom lip but the fish bit down hard and Devin experienced a very sharp pain and quickly took his hand away. He examined his hand and found that there was a long shallow cut along the back of his hand. The cut wasn’t bad, just barely getting through his skin but it was bleeding much more than he thought for such a shallow cut but he couldn’t do anything else except continue hunting. Marvin was still slowly making his way to the dock. Devin was trying to think of different strategies to catch Marvin when he heard his friends calling to him and one of them tossed him the fishing net. It wasn’t very big, and might not be able to support Marvin but Devin had a plan. Devin wasn’t very far from the fish and took a small step before leaping out onto Marvin. Time seemed to slow as he sailed through the air. The water was only halfway up his shin before he jumped so Devin was able to get his full force behind the dive. He was very athletic, playing football, basketball and track his jump was a lot longer than most. While in the air he noticed that his hands still smelled like fish, although now mixed with a little blood. He could hear his friends yelling and screaming about how big the fish was and they were trying to tell him to “get it”, as if that wasn’t what he was trying to do. It was rather cold in the air and he noticed how late it had gotten. The light was almost gone and he could barely see the fish as he flied above him. His feet hit first which made Marvin dart forwards faster than ever... right into the fishing net. It trapped his head and upper half of his body. Marvin struggled furiously trying to free himself, but he never thought to go backwards. Devin eventually got a grip on his tail. and brought him up to the dock and after a while Marvin stopped flopping around and Devin had won. he finally caught Marvin. The only bad part of the night was that the cab driver wouldn’t let them ride in his cab with a fish so they had to walk through the city to get home. He put up with more questions and pictures than he could imagine as he carried Marvin through the big city. People couldn’t believe that he caught that fish in their little lake! He didn’t mind though, he was so proud of what he accomplished he didn’t mind all the people as he walked past the brightly lit restaurants, stores and hotels. The city was very busy and it seemed like everybody wanted a picture with the giant fish. One person even gave him a hamburger just to hold Marvin. The burger could it have come at a better time. It was way past his normal dinner time and Devin could eat a horse. It tasted amazing. it was simple, he only tasted meat, pickles, mustard and ketchup but it also tasted like victory. He had won, he had filled the hole in his life that was named Marvin.