I was sitting on a picnic table outside of the office, ostensibly "enjoying" a cup of the Maxwell House Prison Blend we brew at work, when a ham sandwich landed with a meaty thunk on the wooden slats before me.

I heard the whispering, of course.  I'd been putting up with this nonsense all week and, frankly, it was beginning to wear.  Ignoring the eager, expectant muttering of my concealed observers, I eyed the ham sandwich warily. 

It looked good.  It smelled good.  It was, in all respects, a tasty ham sandwich.  With Swiss cheese, if I wasn't mistaken.  I won't lie and say I wasn't tempted.  I was.

That was the point.

In retrospect, I should have expected it, long before the first time.  That will be two weeks ago on Thursday.  That time, it was a donut.  A simple, glazed donut, probably from Krispy Kreme, which of course is the type I prefer.  I'm quite certain those responsible for the donut knew so, or at least suspected that. 

They wouldn't be good fishermen if they didn't.

As I leaned closer to the ham sandwich, it moved slightly.  Tugged by an unseen force, it slipped enticingly across the surface of the picnic table, moving just so, wriggling at the end of the nearly invisible monofiliment line as if to say, "Look at me.  I'm delicious."

I wasn't falling for it.  No, I'd seen that happen once, purely by luck, when Matt in Marketing reached the mysteriously placed cheese danish before I could, two days ago.  We'd again been sitting on the picnic table behind the office when the danish appeared.  We both should have stopped to ask ourselves where the danish might have originated but, hey, free cheese danish.  Matt, who was closer to the succulent and unexpected snack, picked it up and put it in his mouth.

The large and very sharp iron hook that immediately speared him through the cheek was, to say the least, probably not to his liking.  No sooner had he bitten into the cheese danish than he was jerked off his feet. I stood, speechless, my jaw dropped, as he was dragged struggling feebly across the asphalt of the parking lot.  Then he was over the lip of the artificial drainage pond that serves this portion of the office park, scattering a herd of angry Canada Geese as he splashed, screaming, into their midst.  I caught a glimpse of the soles of his boat shoes before he disappeared under the water.  That was the last I saw of him.

At the time, I thought I imagined the sound of wet high-fives.  Water distorts sound, after all, so I wasn't certain... but I had time to wonder.  Then the sandwiches started showing up with increasing regularity.

I could see the sharp, oversized, stainless steel hook poking through the corner of the sandwich.  Despite its needle tip gleaming dully from the freshly baked wheat bread, I admit that I considered whether I might grab the sandwich and make off with it before the unseen fishermen reeled me in.  I suppose that is what some fish think, when random worms on the end of barbed knives wend their merry ways into the otherwise peaceful lives of those fish.  I am obligated to see things from their point of view, now that matters betwen we, humanity, and they, the fish, have escalated.

It all started with the little boy.

I discovered him in the parking lot last week.  He was fishing for squirrels.  I'm not making this up.  He had a peanut, an honest-to-God, straight-from-a-Chip-and-Dale-cartoon peanut, unshelled, tied to the end of his fishing line.  He was fishing for squirrels, reeling them in when they took the bait, and fighting against their not-inconsiderable efforts to take the peanut from the end of the line.

I didn't think anything of it, other than to snap a picture with my phone, amused at his unique way of complying with his mother's wishes that he "go play outside."  When a second squirrel, and then a third, and then a fourth joined the game, I didn't think much of it.  The squirrels sounded angry, certainly, but when don't they?

Not ten minutes later I heard his scream.  It was cut short.  I'd rather not imagine why or how.  All that was left was a fishing pole.

The bait was gone.

I thought about that poor boy, most likely dragged into the woods and eaten by enraged squirrels.  (As I considered it, I heard my unseen observers muttering that we just weren't hitting the bait the way we used to, and perhaps they had better sweeten the deal.  I braced myself for what was to come.) No doubt the word was quickly spread through the animal kingdom, that day I saw the boy fishing for squirrels:  No longer were the humans confining their fishing to just fish.  No, now fishing was being used on larger game, and on dry land.  No doubt this was an escalation of some long unwritten rule about the interaction between humans and animals.  I expect the word went out that all bets were off and, if that was how we wanted it, well, they'd be happy to oblige us.

Then the fish started fishing for us, and now they've got an office temp working at the desk where Matt in Marketing used to sit, and I'm seriously thinking of making a try for that ham sandwhich, which has, as I type this on my laptop at the picnic table, just been joined by a bag of kettle chips

I think I can make it.

Wish me luck.