A few minutes after dawn Jake Lawson wheeled his fishing cart up to the midway point of Berkeley Pier and set up two poles, one long and the other short. Cut anchovies were on the far line, for kingfish or anything else coming in with the tide, and pile worms were on the near line, tempting perch but probably interesting the crabs. It was a cold morning walled in by the winter fog. He unfolded his chair, uncapped his thermos and sat listening to the sounds of the invisible Bay.
Loons called from somewhere to the southwest, answered maybe from a point to the east, or possibly that was the harbor bell muffled by the thick fallen clouds. He heard a slight tick-tick of an ancient automobile receding due west--straight down the middle of the pier, it sounded like, fainter and fainter until it was subsumed by the abyss.
His near pole flinched; the tip nodded slightly and was still. He considered checking his bait but was too comfortable sitting, warmed by the coffee, livened by the brisk air. More sounds, as distant as time, foghorns behind the Gate, jets leaving or arriving SFO, and then the telltale squeak of a single wheel listing left after years of torture on the hard pier cement. Following closely behind it, the angelic voice of a woman singing gospel songs.
"Hullo, old Jakefish!" Clara's voice hailed an instant before she herself materialized. "How you doin this mornin?"
"Good enough. Looks like a slow day, though"
"But it won't be"
"No," he admitted. "Probably won't be at all."
Clara smiled, sniffed the air. Something about it made her shiver. He looked at her cart. Two, three cans in it and that was all. "Slim pickins?"
"Always is this time of year. But I don't complain."
"That's right, you never do."
She looked at him, studying. "You hear it?"
"I did. And I know you did, too. Were you at the end?"
"Sure was. Heard that car keep on goin all the way down the old pier, goin to catch that ferry."
Jake shook his head. "I just can't believe it," he sighed.
" Mm hmm. Me neither!"
They both laughed.
"Well," Clara said, as if that summed everything up.
"Hold on, I got you some cans and bottles." Jake reached for the bag at the bottom of his cart.
"Aren't you the sweetest man!"
"All the time. Here, I'll just drop em in." He held the bag over her cart, let go and was startled to see her cart ripple suddenly, the way a beam of light seems to bend when smoke enters it. The bag went straight through and made a wet smack on the cement. The cart reassembled.
"Oh, Clara," Jake murmured. "When?"
She drew herself up, almost ready to deny everything, then relented. "I dunno, a week, maybe ten days. Time here is... well you know, it ain't about clocks."
"God, I'm so sorry."
"No need, Honey. No need at all." Her smile now was all mercy, kindness. "Tell you what. You just bring that bag to the Shelter, would you? I'm probably there, too." She grinned and let out a cackle. "I'm probably younger there, too!"
There were tears in his eyes but he held them hard. He knew they were selfish, for his loss and not hers.
"That's okay, Honey," she soothed. "You know I'm all right. And you know you'll see me again, hey?"
"Sure," he whispered.
"Okay then!"
The wheel groaned into life and complained again as the cart and Clara moved on. In moments she was swallowed in the fog or had vanished in the other way.
Jake was not a drinking man and had little patience for other fishermen who brought beer or spirits to the pier. That was why he fished alone most of the time and liked coming to the pier during the winter. Still, he wanted to toast to Clara and all he had was a cup of coffee. He raised the cup silently and took a sip—and nearly had a heart attack. The liquid was frozen solid. He thought he heard a woman's chuckle somewhere in the fog.
Twenty minutes passed, a half hour. Still no action on his poles. He changed bait just to do something and then decided to wait. They would show up soon enough.
A little before Eight he began hearing them. Some he could barely make out and recognized right away. The elderly Chinese man and his eternally silent wife. The Cambodian twins. The Mexican woman. In the fog they were faint, yet definite, striving towards clarity of some kind. He'd figured out sometime ago that it was their own confusion that made them difficult to see. Unlike Clara, who had never had a hesitant day in her life, these people were torn between acceptance and the pattern of their daily existence. Like lanterns with weak batteries, their lights faded in and out. But still they persisted. Rigs were tied to the main lines, hooks baited, poles flicked and then the sinkers splashed the cast targets. Luck was on their side and the fishing was good, steady, double and triple catches of kingfish, smelt, even perch. He marveled at their good fortune, pitied the futility of their labors.
Were they aware? Good question. On these inscrutable faces the expressions were caricatures, hard to decipher. They landed their fish and dropped them in buckets that could never hold them. Fish after fish lay flipping on the cement. The people were not real, yet the fish were, and Jake Lawson did not believe in waste. He did believe in survival, however, and worked the pier, picking up after the phantom anglers, depositing their catches in his one bucket until at last he filled it to the top.
"My friends," he announced, bowing "I thank you. "My wife and I will bless you as we make it through another week."
As in so many mornings, he retrieved his gear with some embarrassment but not without gratitude. The sun was breaking through the fog as he walked down the pier. He saw more people and gave them all his best smile, whether or not they were real.

Clipped and used with Permission by Glen Gustavson A.k.a. "Songslinger" at  http://www.songslinger.net/fishing.html