CATEGORY: SAILING
PHOTO: A RED SNAPPER

One summer when we were sailing with the Carsons, Bob Carson caught a Red Snapper.  (Bob Carson would not have thought of refusing to get a fishing license.) Red Snappers are deep water fish, so it takes a long line to catch one.  I had never even seen a picture of one before.  It was about 18 inches long and hefty for its length.  When it came out of the water it was a dark brick red, about the color of the darkest red rocks in Arizona.  As it lay in the cockpit, its colors started to change.  Its brick red changed to a lighter rust and eventually to a rose red.  Its stomach was an ivory white, and all along the edges the most exquisite pastels appeared: violet, mauve, pink, pale orange and pale fuscia.   They were magically beautiful.  They seemed to shimmer as they changed.

 I thought they were made by its spirit leaving its body.