Viral

by Kenny Torella

Hours after the stranger’s hands pull you out of the swollen river you awake in the hospital—bits of dried algae crusted under your fingernails, rocks still in your shoes—to learn you're now just the fool who tried to fish off the dock days after the hurricane, tried to reel one in that bent the rod so hard you tumbled in right after it; it’s all there in the grainy video looping on your brother’s phone in the waiting room, now viral like all the water you swallowed as you wished you were the fish and not the fisherman.