Mr. Narav was a different man. It is quite beyond me why anyone would wish to waste their time searching for the beleaguered old botanist who spent more time with his plants then with his family. But when a rich city man, named Mr. J.P. deLeon, arrives and offers an enormous sum of money return we'll do anything.

Many believed him dead but there were some who believed him to have become one with nature and simply disappeared from this earth. Whatever the hell that means; I guess he's part of a tree somewhere.

But as I previously stated, I simply desired the monstrous amount of money...That's not to say I wasted much time searching for him. To be honest I was the last one to have seen him; he was babbling quite incessantly, quite annoyingly. So, as usual, I said nothing too him, but as our paths neared I scarcely heard him say:

"Well, that makes sense, but what to tell them...They will not understand this sudden disappearance; they won't find a body..."

As an optimist, when large sums of money were involved, I decided that he had simply stowed away on some ship and traveled to a distant world to study its plants. Of course I was never noted for guessing accurately. As the townspeople sluggishly relinquished hope of cashing in on Mr. Narav, Mr. deLeon became increasingly irate and left. We soon passed by this episode in our lives.

While I grew older, I became more and more of a fisherman, not because of the fish, but because of the tranquility, the silence, the opportunity. I stretched out on the best site one day and heard through the faint breeze the voice of Mr. Narav.

As the last person to have ever seen the man, his voice was firmly engraved in my thoughts as I was never to hear his voice again.  So how could he be speaking to me? I pondered this as his voice appeared to be brought by the slight breeze across the pond to me. As I began to depart the voice begged me to stay, insisting that it would be lonely without me...no wife, no children...As usual, I declined to reply.

That night I thought long and hard about Mr. Narav and his story. After tossing through the possibilities I decided it best if I never went fishing again; I decided it best if someone else fished Mr. Narav out of his fountain.

Keyword: searching for meaning in all the wrong places

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Comments (3)

Posted by Tarhead Mugwump 2008-08-15 21:34:01 interesting while in the middle of writing a story about somebody becoming a smaller part of a larger thing - i found this story to be really interesting. many probably won't agree, but that's okay - i found this to be a great story about nothing at all. oddly, we are all looking for mr. narav and not really wanting to find him. write on! + Report this comment
Posted by sebcoco 2008-08-15 23:29:00 .... Short but nice story based on a strange idea. Keep on! + Report this comment
Posted by Andy6 2008-08-18 08:08:28 .... For a such a short story, the characters are much deeper than some from much longer texts. It's quirky and i liked it + Report this comment

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