Abusua Panyin had been watching the lagoon blue waters for eighty-seven years, nine months, and three days before the gods finally decided to take him. Unlike with the watcher before him, Kabla Blay, the gods had been generous with time. Abusua had heard that their lack of generosity had more to do with Kabla’s indiscretions.

The first time he came to the lagoon blue water, he was 3 years old. His father, a watcher before him, had brought him, Abusua, sitting high on his father’s shoulders. So high that Abusua felt he could almost touch the sky. This was the only memory Abusua had of that visit. 

Every year on Abusua’s birthday, his father retold the story with a glint in his eye. 

He would tell anyone who would listen, but Abusua’s father enjoyed telling his friends the most. It was Papa’s proudest moment. “Jack, my pikin sommersault of my shoulders wey he run full speed in the water. Me kraa, I scare. I dey panic paaa, wey I chase him. But een reach before me. And een dive in da water and just start dey float. I shook” When Abusua’s father told this story to friends, they would often ask the same questions. Did you scream for him? Did you punish him? Did you teach him to never again do something so stupid?  

Abusua’s father had done none of this. Papa did not believe in making children afraid of nature or punishing them for following their hearts. What Papa had done instead was take Abusua out on the canoe. On the canoe, they travelled far and deep to the place where eyes could only see more water. There, Papa pulled out a net and wedged in each intersection of rope worms from a can. Then Papa had let his net into the water and asked Abusua to sit with him. Abusua remembered the quiet of the water, though it was not silent. Abusua remembered the taste of salt in the air, though it was not pungent, and the feel of the breeze on his face, which left him more cool than dry. When the sputtering of fish came, Papa was already on his feet, pulling the net onto wood. Papa pulled out five fish and released the rest back into the water. Abusua watched Papa as he sliced into fish and emptied out guts. When they returned home, Mama made a small fire, and Abusua, Papa, Mama, Auntie Aba, and Nana Baake all sat by the fire, each roasting their fish. When Papa gave Abusua his fish, he told him this: sometimes you are the fish, and sometimes you are the fisherman. The water decides, but you must never go against it.

Abusua came with Papa almost every day to watch the waters until the day Papa would not come, which soon turned into days Papa could not come, and then finally, when there was no Papa to come.

Abusua had watched the waters for years and years. Sometimes bringing his own children. Though unlike Papa, he gave no opportunity for his children to become fish. He had gotten to know the waters too well. These waters often quiet but never silent.

And then one day, the quiet was gone.

The waters suddenly troubled, with canoes bigger than Abusua had ever seen. With cloths tied to their ropes instead of fish. With men who, even atop water, looked discontent.

Abusua watched the waters as they waved and knocked.

A gurgle in his throat, as if himself fish in a net. And Abusua, though he did not understand how he knew, felt deeply somewhere that a moment was coming where the ocean would decide whether he was the fish or the fisherman.