fisherman

by Zary Fekete

From the center of Freedom Bridge, the Danube looks like it might be clean. Wide and sure of itself. Moving like it has places to be. Tourists lean over the rails and take photos of the green trusses, the yellow trams, their own small shapes in the glass of the water. The bridge vibrates when trains pass.

I saw him just past the halfway point. Below, on the bank. Hunched, elbow-deep in a pile of riverbed trash. Piles of cigarette ends, beer bottles, plastic forks mottled with algae. He didn’t move like someone loitering. He moved like someone searching.

I should’ve kept walking. But something in the way his body folded, slow and methodical, like he was touching the earth with intent…like he believed something was there. I don’t know. I stopped.

He didn't see me climb down the rusted access steps. I tried to make it look like I belonged. Hands in coat pockets. Nothing dramatic. Just a man near another man by the river.

After a moment I said, “You looking for something?”

He turned. Scraped cheeks, weather-paled skin, a gray beard that had learned how to survive.

“Who wants to know?”

I told him. I said I’d seen him from the bridge, and I was sure it must be something important. I asked if I could help.

He studied me a moment. His eyes weren’t suspicious. Just tired of needing to decide who to believe.

Finally: “Fishing line. Dropped it. Rolled down somewhere in all this.”

I nodded. We both looked at the mess like it might answer.

So, we searched.

It took five minutes. Maybe ten. A small, filthy coil of green thread wedged under a rock. I pulled it free like it was a fossil.

He took it from my hand like it was something living.

I asked him why it mattered.

“For my bucket,” he said. “I live outside the city. Dug a well. I use this to draw the water up. I only drink water I pull myself.”

There was no sermon in it. Just fact. A man and his well.

We stood by the river. The fishing line in his hand like a quiet reward. Behind us, Váci Street shimmered with glass storefronts and clean white signage. Leather handbags, crystal shops, wine bars with English menus. The river didn’t care. It flowed between both lives, unbothered.

He didn’t ask for anything else. Didn’t bless me or curse me. Just gave a small nod, like a closing door.

I told him I hoped the line held. He said, “It will.”

I climbed back up. The trams were still passing. A group of Americans took selfies on the bridge. I heard one of them say, “Isn’t this gorgeous?”

And yes. It was.

But I was thinking about the line.

How it disappeared so easily, and how much it mattered. How we walk over people who are trying to hold things together with thread. How they still thank you when you help them find it.

As I climbed back to the bridge, I glanced once more at Váci Street, at the polished storefronts and the people inside, buying things they did not need. And I thought: We are all looking for something.

Some of us just kneel closer to the river.

Photo of Zary Fekete

BIO: Zary Fekete grew up in Hungary. He has a debut novella (Words on the Page) out with DarkWinter Lit Press and a short story collection, To Accept the Things I Cannot Change: Writing My Way Out of Addiction out with Creative Texts. He enjoys books, podcasts, and many many many films. Twitter and Instagram: @ZaryFekete Bluesky:zaryfekete.bsky.social