An Old Fisher
An Old Fisher
By Mikho Mosulishvili
Translated from Georgian into English by Ani Mosulishvili
"Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi. But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi. Between Zhuangzi and a butterfly, there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things."
Zhuangzi - "About equality of things."
Recently I have had a strange feeling: as if in my own city and even in the country I were an immigrant who has learned the language very well but can not understand the people and their behavior.
I miss the 80s Tbilisi - absolutely different… I remember Omar Durmishidze’s splendid exhibition in the city in those times.
I especially remember the picture “an old fisher”.
An old fisher is sitting on a pavement of a dark street; there is a box in front of him. He has put a fish on this box and looks absolutely hopeless and lonely. He is sitting so strangely that the pleats of his shirt and the wrinkles of his face have the same shape.
When you get closer you start discovering small pieces of hope in his eyes - maybe you will buy his fish?
If you get back and look at him again you won’t see white pieces anymore - you did not buy fish either.
When you get closer - you see the pieces of hope and when you get back - they disappear.
One may think that it is just an illusion but the more times you do it, the more times you will get the same result.
I was twenty-two years old and I went to see that painting every day.
So I remember it so very well that I can see it, or I can imagine it or I can recall it.
I see and also feel that I am that fisherman looking at you from the picture with the pieces of hope in my eyes - maybe someone will buy my fish?
2004
The illustration? for the short-short story was drawn by the author, 2021