Irenosen Okojie: Butterfly Fish

By the time Mrs Harris made her way to me I’d had my fill of admiring other swimmers, wanting to steal their easy strokes as though they were costumes to be worn. She eased in front of me, white locks across her face fat with water.

We hadn’t had a chance to really talk yet. I fiddled with my goggles trying to contain the anger rising. “I can’t believe you fucked off and left me. You realise I have nobody right now.”

A tiny bulb of water flattened on her neck. “What about the counselling sessions? I thought they would help.” Her tone was patient.

“I’m not talking about a doctor that I’m just another case to,” I spat. “I’m talking about you. He’s a stranger paid to listen to me confess things they might use against me.”

We went under, swimming towards the middle. I was aware of people kicking around me moving water through their fingers that would trickle down into the rest of their day. Behind my goggles I cried. It’s possible to cry and hold your breath under water. We were at the bottom of the sea, not the crammed leisure centre pool in east London. She turned her head, grabbed my hand. We spoke silently knowing our words would not survive without air.

She just fucking died with no warning, I said. My words swallowed by splashes above us.

She always did things without preparing you.

What do I do now?

She squeezed my fingers. You can’t resent her for something she couldn’t control. Shit happens. Some people go to sleep and don’t wake up. Others cross a street without looking and get hit by a car. A man I once knew left an incense stick burning while he dozed off, the whole flat went up in smoke . Then the water pulled her silent apology away.

We came up for air, holding onto the side, kicking gently. Mrs Harris squeezed water from her bun. “You want me to lie to you and tell you things will be better overnight? They won’t be.”

“No,” I said, feeling the tug of my swimming costume strap on my shoulder, blinking at the strange blue light, at Mrs Harris as though she was a product of it. “I just feel… abandoned.” A sour taste filled my tongue. I pulled my costume strap up before we went under again.

The bed of forks beneath us trembled; one came unstuck rising towards me. The water pulled Mrs Harris, lithe and free. She drew me along, anchoring me somehow through the dip of her shoulder, the flick of her feet, the curve of a turn. When we broke the shivering water, the remnants of our conversation sunk to the bottom to become tadpoles.

“Shit! There’s a fish in the water.” A kid squealed.

“Where?”

“Behind you, no don’t move you’ll scare it!”

Some teenagers scurried around trying to grab it.

“No! There, there-aw. Get it.”

The noise level increased, the lifeguard blew his whistle.

“Who put the fish in the water?” he asked. “Where did it come from?”

Sure enough I could see the fish and I thought it could see me. It shimmered in my direction. Mrs Harris and I exchanged glances. It was silver with purple fins. Its fins were sewing needles stuck together.

Mrs Harris shook the water from her hair, “Quick, grab it before those crazy kids come down here.” Heat spread on my throat as if someone blew hot breaths there. I followed the wriggling fish, tracing it this way and that. I lunged at it, fumbled, the tail tipping my fingers. I tried again to catch it with clutches that limped to the finish like the slowest swimmers in a class. The fish was roughly two feet long and so shiny I was sure its skin was made of light. I stopped then, momentarily, throwing it with my stillness. It swam back towards me and my hands were poised in the water. I grabbed it, feeling its rough, lukewarm slippery skin. I pulled up and out, careful not to let it slide back into the water.

“Got it,” I murmured.

Mrs Harris smiled, she followed me up the steps and out onto the pale green floor. I heard the kids coming out of the pool, bits of their conversations trickled down.

“What? I don’t know man, that lady’s got it.”

The patter of footsteps grew closer. Mrs Harris and I knelt on the floor. We held the fish, a heartbeat between us. The blue light travelled across the ceiling and the scars on my wrists hummed the hymn that fish like to sing when the tide comes in. The fish stared at me; inside its filmy eye shuttered a mini camera lens. A crowd gathered around us. The fish’s mouth opened repeatedly. It trembled, then heaved and a worn, brass key slick with gut slime fell out of its mouth into my hand.

“No way!” a voice chimed. “Did you see that? It just threw up a key, man.”

“How did a key get inside it?” another voice chirped.

I took my swimming hat off and put the key inside it. Heavy with the weight of water my released hair in two-strand twists slapped against my neck.

The lifeguard ambled over. “Fess up. Which one of you clowns put the fish in the pool?”

Voices became a chorus. “I didn’t put no key there.”

“Yo, the bogie man did it!”

“It was my Nan, boss; she came out of Holloway prison to do it.”

Mrs Harris said awkwardly, “Can we get a container with some water for the fish?” She addressed the lifeguard. The fish trembled as if my hands gave electric shocks.

“It’s dying!” I screamed. “It needs mouth to mouth resuscitation.” I bent down and placed my mouth on its hard lips that felt like the opening to a defective bottle. I blew breaths into its clammy mouth. I felt Mrs Harris’s entranced gaze.

“Nasty, she’s kissing the fish man!”

“This woman’s weird.”

“What’s wrong with her?” The voices hovered above me, tiny planes with broken wings crashing down. Then everything went quiet, slowed down as though I’d gone temporarily deaf. I was vaguely aware of Mrs Harris grabbing my shoulder while I took deep breaths for the fish, its filmy eye replaced by my brown one. By the time the lifeguard pulled me off the fish the kids were stuck to the ceiling, the bed of forks had risen to the surface of water and the key was still in my hand.

The fish didn’t make it. Outside the sports centre Mrs Harris and I sat in my beaten up, blue Volkswagen Golf. I turned on the engine and the car spluttered to life. We sat quietly, processing what just happened. It settled in our mouths, rich and thick. In the back seats lay a bent copy of Trace Magazine and two dirty frying pans, a sheet of crinkled foil between them. Gold sweet wrappers were stray lights on the floor. To the far left corner, my silver spacesuit costume sat like our third passenger.

“What an incident!” she said finally.

I strapped my seatbelt in. “I know, the universe is speaking to me.”

“The universe could indeed be communicating with you.”

I swung my body to face her. “Seriously, that fish let me catch it. You saw what happened, it swam right to me.”

“I saw you got lucky.”

“What about the key?” I asked, pulling it out of my pocket, waving it at her.

“Maybe it’s as random as a fish swallowing a key, magical.”

I held up the brass object to the rear view mirror and reflected back at me wasn’t a key but a finger, a slender, tapered brown feminine finger. I slipped it back inside my pocket.

“You think the pool has some sort of pipe in it?” I sunk back into the grey seat.

Mrs Harris popped a piece of gum in her mouth, “Can’t say I’ve ever noticed. That was some sight, you giving a fish mouth to mouth!” Then she said, “You’re grieving but be careful, behaviour like that can get you thrown in the funny farm.”

“It was reactive!”

I looked out the window at the gaps between the leaves of the tree leaning to one side.