Strange Fish

A strange fish visited me today. It was blue and slick to the touch, save for a round silver fin protruding from its back. It would swim around me, occasionally flailing its two tails around like a newly hatched fish, then gliding again, all the while examining me through gaping black eyes. Eventually, excitedly, it floated to the surface. The other fish avoided it, but I never paid any mind. I guess I couldn’t avoid it if I wanted to.

“So depressing,” Cynthia agreed, her eyes locked on the yuzu lemon tart sitting in the middle of the table.

“When do you go back?” Dan chimed in.

Marcus didn’t respond. He was slouched back in his chair, staring into an all too empty wine glass. 

“Marcus?”

Marcus looked up from his food. It was some kind of fish smothered in some kind of foam. He let his fork clatter onto the plate. Foam particulates soared onto the white silk tablecloth. “Sorry. I need to go to the bathroom, excuse me.” 

Marcus slammed the stall door closed, harder than he intended to, and sat down on the toilet. He’d reached the end of his breathing routine and didn’t know what to do with himself now. He could feel the chasm in his stomach opening up again—the shortness of breath, drowning in air. He wasn’t able to fill it with wine and foam tonight, but it never stays full. Marcus pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts, scanning the names for someone who he knew would be on the other end. He could call his therapist. Yesterday, he told her about his trip to the reef. He described it to her: the white, dead expanse, once so abundant in its life and color that viewing it for the first time took his breath away. It was his first time diving in ten years. Last week he had to be pulled up to the surface by another diver. 

The strange fish visited me yesterday. I didn’t have to tell it I’m sick. I think the news has spread. Or maybe you can just tell. I can feel the tide pulling me more than ever now. I used to enjoy fighting it, and the pain made me want to fight it more. But secretly, I would fantasize about the current getting the better of me, the power of the water overwhelming me and lifting me off the ocean floor, flinging me through the water like a grain of sand. I’m too massive for that now. Too connected to everything around me to leave. I guess this is as good a place to die as any.

The strange fish was drifting aimlessly around me again. It cowered behind me and watched as a shark ate a young turtle, tearing chunks of its flesh off until it was an unrecognizable mass of blood, meat, and bones. The strange fish watched, transfixed, until the shark was done, and then floated back up to the surface. I never saw it again.

Marcus’s favorite part of diving was, strangely enough, floating to the surface. No matter who he was diving with, he was always first to leave the water. Not because he didn’t enjoy himself—in another time, diving was the only thing in his day he looked forward to. He didn’t really know why either. Like clockwork, thirty minutes after he submerged the majesty of the coral vanished. Its once mysterious nooks and crannies were now just…rock. He couldn’t bear to stay much longer after that feeling set in, so he began to kick, looking only at the shimmering white surface; if he looked down, all he’d see were shiny black rubber flippers eclipsing the ocean floor. 

By the time Marcus reached the surface, the sun had already broken through the thin veneer of gray clouds that had obscured it on his ride out. He looked around at the empty blue expanse and swam to the boat he had arrived on—not much more than a dinghy bobbing up and down in the distance. Marcus wearily pulled himself up onto the stern, rocking the boat slightly, and collapsed, breathing heavily. The sun was now beating down onto him. He squinted and rolled over, looking back down into the ocean. Strips of light danced seductively near the surface, but, as Marcus tried to look down deeper, the light evaporated into a blue, impenetrable mist. Peter, his companion for the day, surfaced and ripped off his goggles, revealing one sparkling blue eye and one milky gray one. He swam to the boat and pulled himself up into it, stepping over Marcus and perching on the bow.

“Y’alright, mate?” He asked with a raspy Australian accent. Marcus was still looking down into the water. Peter began to rip off his gear, letting the chunks of metal and rubber thud against the floor. “You barely used half your tank.” 

“I know,” Marcus sat up with a groan. “I think I saw what I needed to see.” 

“Depressing, isn’t it?” Marcus ignored the question and began to take off his gear. “She’s practically dead already,” Peter chuckled to himself.  

Marcus looked up at the setting sun. “It’s getting late.” He tugged on the small motor nailed to the end of the boat until it started to rumble, shaking the hull and everything inside. The engine sputtered and, eventually, they began to move.

Marcus stood on the stern and steered the boat while Peter looked out over the water. Its gloss of bright blue paint was slowly turning to a swirling mixture of dark reds, purples and yellows. Peter hung an electric lantern on a peg in the middle of the boat. “Too windy for a smoke, you think?” Peter asked after a long silence. Marcus looked down from the horizon. “You can try.”

Peter reached into a water tight bag in the middle of the boat, pulled out a faded yellow carton of camels and stuck one in his mouth. He rummaged further into the bag, extracting a matchbook. He ran his finger over the woman on the cover, draped across a pink chaise longue and smoking a cigarette herself. Flicking the cover open, he pulled a match and struck it unsuccessfully a few times. Peter plucked another match and struck it, much harder this time, against the phosphorus red strip on the matchbook. It burst into a ball of flame, which quickly shrunk to almost nothing. Desperately, he cupped his hands around the small flame, willing it back to its original size. Miraculously, it stayed lit, and he brought it to the wilting cigarette in his lips. Peter leaned back, satisfied, and looked at Marcus, who had long since turned his attention back to the horizon. 

“Not too windy,” Peter announced proudly. “You want one?” 

“Let me try yours,” Marcus said as he finally sat down. Peter reached out to offer the cigarette and Marcus took it. He tentatively put it between his lips and pulled. He hadn’t tasted tobacco in a long time.

“So,” Peter yelled over the motor, “you said you’ve been diving out here a while?” 

Marcus took another drag of the cigarette. “About fifteen years. I left, though, for ten. This is my first day back.” 

“Must have been quite a shock, then,” Peter remarked. “To see her like this.”

“I was expecting it. I saw pictures.” Marcus rubbed his forehead.

“Still,” said Peter, “it’s different in person. You feel her pain when you’re with her, you know?” Marcus puffed the cigarette again.

“I don’t know about all that.”

“Why did you come up so early?” Peter asked, leaning back a little.

“I was done,” Marcus responded.

“Ok. But why?”

“I just told you.”

“You said you were done. I’m asking you why.”

“I know what you’re asking. I…I don’t know. I just needed to leave.”

“Fine. I won’t push,” said Peter. Marcus glowered and took one last drag of the cigarette—he hadn’t realized he finished it. He looked up at Peter apologetically.

Peter groaned as he reached back into the watertight bag. He pulled out the cigarettes and matches and began to start the process over again, furiously striking the match until he got a flame. “Next time just ask for one.” 

The sun had completely set now, and any light it left was fading quickly too. The sunlight didn’t matter anymore, though—the lights of the city had finally come into view. At this time of night and from this far away, Marcus thought it looked like the stars had fallen from their place in the sky and were resting peacefully on the water. He slowed the boat, turning off the motor and letting it float listlessly toward the shore. Peter looked at Marcus, trying to get a clue of what he could be doing. Marcus looked at the horizon, at the bright lights of the condos and hotels that lined the shore. He turned back the other way and looked out across the ocean. A streak of moonlight cut across the water, but, as Marcus looked past it, he could only see black.