Canal

There are ten things I’d like to do before I die. One of them is to complete the Sunday Times Crossword. Another is to fuck Kristin Scott Thomas. Normally I fuck up the Sunday Times Crossword and don’t fuck Kristin Scott Thomas. Despite determined efforts the best I’ve managed so far in about ten years trying is about halfway through – the Sunday Times Crossword that is, not Kristin Scott Thomas – so realistically I’m not going to achieve either, which cuts the ten things I’d like to do before I die down to eight. One of them ‘Seeing someone fishing on the canal towpath and pushing him in’, is one of them. It is to see their look of absolute amazement that someone should be loopy enough as to deliberately push them into the canal that appeals to me. I did it yesterday. 

On being pushed into the canal I naturally expected the fisherman would take some sort of retributive action, and confidently forecasted that it would probably take the form of him climbing out of the canal and repaying the compliment by pushing me in, so I had prudently dressed for the occasion in old clothes that I didn’t much care about. I could not however forecast what the fisherman might do to me before pushing me into the canal, especially with regard to violence, so I chose my victim with care. Big men built like brick shithouses were right out, but even small men can pack a punch, and it would be just my luck to push the World Flyweight Boxing Champion into the canal. I had considered pushing a child fisherman in instead, maybe a weedy-looking one with spots aged about twelve, but weedy-looking children aged twelve can often have decidedly unweedy-looking brick shithouse-built fathers of about thirty-five, so I decided against it. A two mile stroll along the canal side had netted no likely victim. There were only two men fishing and one of them was too big whilst the other, although a suitable size, was black, and I didn’t want my actions to be perceived as being racially motivated, particularly after my recent altercation with one of the waiters at the local Rawalpindi Balti and Kebab House. I was just about to give it up as a bad job and return home when I spotted the ideal man. He was about five feet two inches tall and no more than seven stones wet through, which he very soon would be once I’d pushed him into the canal. Faint heart never won fair lady, nor pushed a fisherman into the canal, so without further ado I stepped up to him and gave him a hefty shove, in fact almost too hefty because he was so light that his bodyweight offered no resistance and I almost followed him in. He stood up in the canal, coughing and spluttering. Then, without a single word or so much as a glance in my direction, he climbed out of the canal, resumed his seat, and carried on fishing as though nothing had happened. I have thought of little else since and for the life of me I don’t know why he acted like he did. Perhaps he was under the impression he’d had a blackout or something and had fallen into the canal? Maybe it was just that he was an exceptionally keen fisherman and wanted to get on with his fishing with the minimum of delay? Or perhaps he knew that some people have a secret desire to push fishermen into the canal and was just going along with it? I will never know. What I do know is that because he didn’t even so much as acknowledge that he’d been pushed into the canal it was as though I hadn’t pushed him in, and the experience, instead of making me feel exhilarated and giving me a sense of achievement has left me completely deflated. I may very well have to do it again sometime.
While I was writing this it occurred to me that I have never, ever, seen a woman fisherman. Are there any?