Seasons in Progress

People used to wonder at the sign outside his cubicle that read “Seasons in Progress.” It was actually supposed to read “Session in Progress” but he’d typoed the first word and didn’t notice the auto-correct incorrectly corrected it to read Seasons. In reality, with his days spent infomancing with the new Dynamatronic Computation Engine, ‘seasons’ and ‘sessions’ were pretty much interchangeable in their incongruity. He’d printed the incorrect auto-corrected version and put it up without really noticing the error.

Puzzled, his secretary asked about it after returning from lunch.

“It’s a pun.” he told her, “The DCE uses sessions to keep users logged in. Since I’m always logged in, I’m in session.” He smiled. She didn’t.

“It says ‘Seasons.’”

“…so it does,” he marveled, and forty-three of them went by.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring found him in a monastery that floated on a lake in a forest. The brook had melted and murmured and glid beneath the Ume blossoms, and he sat silently not thinking, but fishing. Old Man Trout surfaced then, avoiding the hook as usual.

“You’re still here,” the Trout said.

“I am.”

“It’s spring.”

The man nodded.

“You told me last Autumn you were leaving to fish the Aethers.”

“I was angry then. I’m not anymore.” he told the trout, who sank and reemerge moments later, turning one unblinking black eye up to look at the man.

“I wondered if you’d be here when I awoke. I had a dream.” the trout said.

The man listened and re-cast his line.

Old Man Trout flicked his tail, “I dreamt the world had no tilt and there were no seasons. There was no death or rebirth. Like before the moon came and created the tides.” He rolled in the water, “There was a red maple at twilight, and it never lost it’s leaves. You were in the dream, but you were always the same, always as you were and never changing.”

“Everything changes.”

“But only because of the tilt. If it wasn’t for the tilt, it would be like in my dream.”

The man considered this, “It was just a dream.”

“Nothing is just anything.” countered the fish, and flicked water at the man, who shrugged, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, and wiped off his cheek.

“What of the Aethers then? You’ll just do nothing?”

“I’m not interested any longer. There’s nothing to find.”

“The why fish at all?”

“Because to human doesn’t make sense,” the man chuckled. Then and later, “…it’s different now. I’m not looking for anything anymore. I’m no longer angry. I have no questions. I no longer read except for enjoyment and wonder at everything but ponder not at all. I just cast the line and see what comes, like how you may let a current take you.”

“I see.”

The man grinned, “Good.”

Eventually, the man’s seasons came to an end as seasons do, and his body was placed upon a raft and cast out into a lake alight with floating candles. He was escorted by an old trout that swam slowly in and out of the craft’s wake.