Fishing in Vain Henotheistics, or, Aten’s Revenge

Today, I searched for the giant squid in Pointe aux Chenes River, which I first mispronounced, chain, then mispronounced, chin. On the bank, a colony of frozen ants necklaced a sad-looking oak with a dewlap. They were once Ghost Ants, or Acrobat Ants—I couldn’t tell, even after checking the thoraxes for coconut-like odors and unusual flexibility. Look: it was dark, and my flashlight was waning, and I had all that winter in my nose. The guy at the St. Ignace Mobil station—the one who tried so hard, and failed, to sell me a Mars bar—told me that the squid here are attracted to gold. I found my wife’s old charm bracelet in the jumper cables bag, reflected that gold’s elemental symbol is Au, reflected that this was also my grandfather’s last word, but I don’t believe he was calling out for any final gold. I baited the hook with Nefertiti’s little face. She was dense, soft, ductile, and dead. No bigger than a thumbnail. I dug with the toe of my shoe into the silt, hoping for a vein or, at the very least, some sylvanite in the alluvium. I found only a pathetic oak leaf, curled into itself like an empty cheroot, and the excised red mohawk of the Pileated Woodpecker, which I pasted to my left eyebrow (with ice) for luck. I caught no squid (which made me feel bad), and the wind criticized its own blowing, and the nougat in my chest shifted, both cheap and planetary. In the depths, Nefertiti said, In all burial is shining dawn and the radiant heat-resistance of the spacesuit sun-visor. “And a toothy suction cup?” I tried. Look: The wind stole the feathers from my eye, but the ice there stayed put. You said it, she said, and this made me feel good again.

Matthew Gavin Frank