Irenosen Okojie - Butterfly Fish

Don’t be an observer . I wasn’t. There I was running off with a stranger to get to know myself, convinced the limestones in my pocket had left damp stains. They glimmered in those small openings, moist and full of slow promise. If I got really anxious, I could always nibble on them. Rangi called out to me in a language I didn’t recognise, water dancing with his shark mouth. I rubbed my tender neck, blinking against the tide and the memory of him trying to strangle me in his sleep the night before. I stilled my body, a statue amidst black rocks, listening to the heartbeat galloping towards my chest.

In the cosy room of the seaside B&B, the hand on my throat tightened. The earth-toned red room swam. The TV showing an old episode of The Twilight Zone flickered. I clutched at his wrist, struggling for air. My eyes watered, body wriggled, head smacked against the double bed’s rustic headboard. The voice over from The Twilight Zone spoke. You can never know what will happen during those quiet moments of night we take for granted . I tried to speak but he was squeezing hard, face twisted unrecognizably. Greyish white television light bathed us. I kicked wildly, digging my nails into his wrist before the pressure finally eased. I flung my body sideways, grabbing the glass of cold water beside the reading lamp, throwing it in his face.

“What the fuck?” he mumbled, wiping the wetness off his face, sitting up immediately. “Are you crazy? What did you do that for?” His New Zealand accent was even thicker during moments of irritation.

“You were strangling me!” I screamed. My voice sounded paper thin despite the volume. My eyes stung. I spluttered, relieved to be able to breathe again, stumbling from the damp bed as credits rolled on the TV screen. In the bathroom, I ran the cold tap, splashed water on my face and neck, trying to ease the burning sensation in my throat. I heard him knocking about in the other room. The portable fridge door opening made a whoosh sound. Cold air. I sat on the toilet seat trembling, touching the marks forming on my throat, waiting for bruises to come and transform under his bloodshot gaze.

I looked up, silent as his frame filled the doorway. “I’m sorry,” he said, holding a small bowl of ice. He wrapped some cubes in a white cloth, pressed them against my neck. “I didn’t mean to get that way.” His touch was gentle. The same broad hand and tapered fingers were capable of being both tender and destructive. He placed a hand on my shoulder. His handsome face was feral yet apologetic in the bright light. “You’re alright aren’t you?”

“You thought I was someone else!” I accused, still frazzled, nerves shot.

The television was now off.

“No, I didn’t know it was happening,” he answered, mouth a grim line. His shoulders were tight. He let out a slow breath as if releasing an internal pressure.

“Death doesn’t have to be frightening; it’s just a transition into another phase,” he said. It was such an odd comment; I shook my head in disbelief.

“Fuck you!” I exclaimed. “And you might want to be fully awake before you start giving lessons.”

He leaned closer, face inches from mine, and smiled sardonically. His golden eyes gleamed. “Watch your mouth.”

“How can you be so relaxed after what happened?” I asked. “What if I hadn’t been able to wake you?”

“What do you want from me?” he roared. “You want a written fucking apology? You want to hold this over my head is that it?” He walked out, flinging the door open.

I stretched my legs out on the floor, confused by his reaction, trying to ignore the roaring in my head, the clammy feeling on my neck. The pale floor glistened, I tried to stand slowly but my legs buckled. The sentence in my throat was a breathy wheeze.

I began to crawl on the floor. Fear came thick and fast. I couldn’t breathe. Panic attack. I felt around the floor for something, anything to steady me. Rangi appeared in the doorway again, calmly whistling. I hated myself for my weakness, for showing vulnerability too early. I knew I was crawling into the whites of his eyes, disappearing. He watched me struggling on the floor, coolly mouthed “fuck you.” Then everything went grainy black.

When I came to, it was still cold, hard floor beneath me. Rangi held a pillow and there was an intense concentration on his face as he brought it down. The burning in my throat persisted; it felt like sandpaper. The room was hazy, smudged. I couldn’t make out the lines of objects surrounding me. I sat up awkwardly.

“Steady,” he instructed. “It’s okay; I was just going to make you more comfortable. I didn’t want to move you yet.”

“What happened? “I asked, vaguely aware of the weakness of my limbs. He stroked a damp twist off my forehead, pressed a kiss there. “You fainted. Has that happened before?”

“No, not that I can remember,” I answered, confused by his concern and unpredictability. The sleeping blue flame inside him singed my fingers. Somehow I was grateful, it made me feel alive. He carried me out of the bathroom, took my gaze away from the ceiling. After attempting to strangle me, he fucked me gently on the damp, sunken bed.

We left in slanted, heavy rain, hurtling down tight, twisted roads in an older black Mazda I was certain wasn’t even his. Kate Bush’s The Kick Inside played on the radio. I placed my feet on the dashboard. It was hard to see through the thunderous showers but I spotted her at the top of the curve ahead, Anon, running towards us, clutching something round. My heart sank. Did you think I wouldn’t come ? she asked.

Suddenly the car swerved, as if Rangi had seen her too. “Be alert,” he ordered, squeezing my shoulder. That odd intensity he had magnified. I didn’t know what he meant. Was it an opening for me to confess what I saw? Or tell him what I was feeling? I turned to look behind me. Anon sat in the back seat, wet from rain, you let me in she said. She was holding a paperweight; a chunk had been taken out of it. An image of me broken, crawling on the bathroom floor turned slowly inside it. I realised she’d been there all along, not pushed out by different oxygen.

She’d been there, in the sneaky half smile of the woman serving at the chip shop, in the hands of the B&B owner, whose fingers lingered overly familiar on my skin as one blue iris became brown. She’d been there at the beach, rising to the surface of rough waters. My feet cramped on the dashboard. Rangi’s nose began to bleed.

“That happens sometimes,” he said, grabbing a tissue from the glove compartment, wiping his face, then tilting his head back, one hand on the wheel. Blood trickled from his nostrils, seeping into the paperweight scene.

By now the bruised ceiling of our room at the B&B had washed up on the shore. The gulls from the beach had followed our departure too, each sporting one blue and one brown iris. They flapped their wings violently, screaming down the sharp bends, trailing in exhaust pipe smoke.

It was summer when I discovered keyholes spinning in the ether, hiding figures made of dark matter that let me catch a finger in their mouths. I was seven. Nighttime in our household found me tiptoeing down red softly carpeted stairs to spy on my mother, the memory of the school day’s activities sticky on my skin. I’d worn a dead blue oleander flower in my cornrows to school and the fed up expression on my class tutor Mrs Phillips face had been worth it. For God’s sake Joy, take that thing off your head! It’s morbid .

The week before that, I’d re-enacted the birth of Christ for classmates during break time, focusing particularly on the birth scene, complete with tinfoil Jesus and ketchup blood on my thighs, huffing and puffing and crying out, the way I’d seen a woman do on TV. Mrs Phillips had been furious, barging through the circle gathered, glasses steamed up, chest rising and falling rapidly as if it would detach from her body. Her creased, knee length grey dress was fit to burst and her thin features were pinched.