The fish wife

When the fish started talking to the man, rather than being staggered, the man simply found the sea creature rather rude.
The fish had interrupted a perfectly lovely conversation between the fellow (a middle-aged man, called Leonard) and a pretty young thing he had met at the docks.
The fish began to bleat quite pathetically: “My name is Susan, and I shall not be ignored!” The man, Leonard, tried his best to ignore this imposition for as long as he could, knowing full well that, were he to engage the fish in conversation, his pretty young conquest would soon turn heel and run.
But, just as a guilty conscience bangs the head like a hammer and nail, so the streamlined fish continued to shout up from the water: “I’m still here Leonard, stop ignoring me at once. I will be spoken to, remember, I need you to purchase some items for me – from the store.”
Leonard ignored the blue-eyed fish for as long as he could. He liked the way the young girl smiled at him and touched his hand occasionally. This was a sign of affection that his wife, Susan, never offered him.
“Who are you talking to up there?” snapped the fish, swimming out and away from the quayside to better sight the young woman.
“Hah! Why she’s nothing other than a common whore. Stop wasting your pathetic lusts on this floozy and run along to the shop to fetch my supplies,” shouted the fish, slapping with its tail to send a spray of water up to soak the couple. “I shall make you very sorry if you do not!” came its companion cry.
With that, Leonard’s calm reserve subsided and he turned upon the fish with a volley of verbal abuse. “You fish wife, you scaly serpent, your gills are blocked shut with venom which you spit forth at your erstwhile husband. Why, I should not hope to meet such a slippery eel as yourself again, and yet I find myself tied to you for eternity in matrimonial bondage!”
The fish chuckled to itself, at this tirade, and the pretty young maid did indeed turn fleet-footed from the scene and the middle-aged man was left to trudge wearily to the grocer’s store and purchase the few items she had sent him for.
Then he walked slowly, back to the quayside, and upended the brown paper bag of groceries into the water, whereby Susan, the blue-eyed fish, hungrily gobbled up this new and tasty flotsam.
She then waited, maintaining her position through small bristling movements of her fins, as her husband clambered down the rusting iron ladder on the wharf and plopped into the cold waters, beside her.
“Come along, dear,” said Susan, and they both swam off, away from the docks and on into deeper waters.

From the forest to the sea: The House

So he returned to the clearing, dragged and heaved the body, scraped along the path and then on into the trees.
He stopped some way along the journey. The woman’s dress had caught and was now up over her head, revealing her underwear. He slowly and quite gently replaced the dress, for he felt her shame.
Soon he came to the old house. He saw no-one on the narrow dirt track through the trees and he left the forest cover and approached the dilapidated property.
He followed the message he had received via the beacon. He took the body to the first floor of the house and laid it in the large room to the west. He was able to prise up some of the rotting floorboards and drop the corpse there.
He stood and looked for a little while, spied to see if the woman’s hand was showing, or if her cold eyes regarded him in return.
When he was at last satisfied, he left the house with a glance to each side, and he never went back there again.

From the forest to the sea: The Beacon

He crossed the dunes. His plan – to return to and burn the body – itched at his scalp. It was wrong, somehow.
He needed to ask a higher power, but the sea was not granting him communion today. Then he spied the great spear, the beacon which could connect him to heaven, and he rubbed against it and kissed it and spoke sweetly to it.
And, sure enough, the wires rippled and whispered to him in a strange breeze of tongues. He waited there for comprehension. He pieced together the voice from the strings.
He smiled when he understood. Its message was as beautiful as the strumming of the lyre.

From the forest to the sea: The Shore

He spent a while looking into the vegetation. His eyes couldn’t pick the body out and he was satisfied. It safely hidden, he went to ask the sea what to do next.
The rich dark wet sand crumbled under his mighty footstep; the killer, come to the almighty sea like a pilgrim to Delphi. He sat down, cross-legged on the deserted shore. He listened to the waves as they whispered their commands.
After a time, he got up and snarled at the sea birds. The messages were all garbled and confused. He didn’t know what to do next.

From the forest to the sea: The Clearing

At the edges of the forest the trees were leafy and deciduous.
He dragged the battered body to the treeline and hesitated at the clearing. It seemed a lane, running from the dunes back to the inhabited world. It was a potential giveaway, a total lack of vegetation to cover his sin. Yet, where were the people? Where the witnesses?
He bent down and examined the corpse for signs of animation: a gargled breath, a sinister movement (for he could have sworn it jerked and spasmed still, such is the wont of the restless dead).
It lay still though, like yesterday’s doll. It almost made him want to cry, so he hauled it over the path and dumped the heavy load down, amid the longer grass and nettles; kicking it until it rolled down a shallow bank and under the trees again.

From the forest to the sea: The Forest

He killed her in the forest, while she was walking alone.
The sun shone its brilliant light through the thin canopy of pines. She saw him, smiled a hello, let him approach.
She bit his fingers as she struggled. He lifted her off the ground as he strangled her. She didn’t stop fighting until her head hit the tree.

The strength of the sea

In my regular trips to the beach, I am often impressed by the power of those creatures that depend upon the sea for their lives.
It seems to me that such creatures have an overwhelming capacity for survival. I could go into numerous examples; the great spawnings that help defeat predation, and also the swarming of fish and the flashing of their scales to confuse those creatures higher in the food chain and help them to keep surviving. Still, nature often finds a way to break them down, no matter how well they protect themselves. It’s all quite inevitable, I suppose, but no less remarkable and fascinating.
It is, perhaps, the ability that many smaller, very simple creatures have developed to defend and protect themselves from the world that impresses me most. Take those creatures who reside within shells, for example. What miraculous creatures they are. They protect themselves from attack by coating their soft invertebrate bodies with a shield of their own creation. They manufacture crystals of calcium carbonate and add them in layers to create a protective exoskeleton. How amazing is that?
And then, they latch onto a rock. They hold fast and steady in the face of turbulent tides and the worst of storms. They wait in the baking sun for the sea to rise once more and cover them, and allow them to feed. And they just sit there, in the face of chaos, safe in their armour.
Anne agreed to pick me up from the hospital after my procedure. Heck, she even offered to come with me. That was nice of her. I’d quite forgotten she could be nice.
When she dropped me back home she asked if she should come in to make sure I was alright. Sylvie was at work, but I said no. ‘It wouldn’t be right’, I thought, but I didn’t say it.
I thanked Anne, and she told me to look after myself. I couldn’t help chuckling a little as I got out of the car. ‘Look after myself!’ I think it’s a little late for that.
I spent the next couple of days in bed. I told Sylvie I had a cold or flu or something. She brought me tea and sympathy, but she’s none the wiser. I’ll get the full results soon and then we’ll know.
Today I felt better. Today I have been to the beach and walked on the sand. I saw the mussels clinging to the grey rocks, just waiting, prone but secure enough, until the waters returned.
And then I watched the gulls, wheeling overhead. They held stones in their beaks and they dropped them from a height onto the mussels, smashing their proud shells and brittle bodies. Then the gulls descended and feasted.
It’s impressive. Nature; its capacity to survive and to devour. So magnificent.

This tale is part of a series. To read all the stories in this series search the blog for the keyword 'Anne', or click on the word 'Anne' in the 'Labels' tab below.

The black rock

The black rock called to me that day. Its sentience crawled out from under it and spoke to me across the waters. Its thick syrup of a voice sped across the breakers coming at me in engulfing waves, begging me to swim.
In a skyline devoid of rubble, except for the strange crust of souls that jutted high above the wicked sea, everything about the rugged peak inflamed my mind. I had to see for myself, I had to see what spoke to me from its burnt coal heart.
So I swam. I dropped as many of my clothes as I thought I needed and I waded into the surge. With each fresh wave that swamped my body I was refreshed for a moment and knew my recklessness, my insanity, but then the voice of the island craned its neck once more and carried its message still clearer so my ears could hear it anew. I had to press on.
It was a grave struggle. Never in my existence have I fought so hard; against tide, against exhaustion, against my own spirit and conscience, telling me to turn back.
You might think the waves would roll smooth and pitch less mountainous, less torrid than at the shore, but you’d be dread mistaken. I was buffeted and tossed by forces so great, forces I’d never feared and respected as I ought. And yet, as I drew ever nearer with every aching and despairing paddle of my arms the sound in my head turned to wondrous song and the voice became multiple. But the water was choking my lungs as I gulped of it again and the spray was singeing my eyes and I had not a stroke left in my muscles.
When I felt the strong arm of the lifeguard around my chest, I tried harm to raise my arm in defence, or perhaps even attack. With each firm kick of his legs the song died a little in my mind and I gritted and ground my teeth in such despair. Yes, I think I would have killed that saviour of mine if I’d only had the strength. I would have smashed my elbow into his face and drowned his body or dashed his head onto the rocks, if I’d had the power to. And as the voice of the rock faded forever, I cursed my guardian angel, this enigma of the sea, this lifeguard, with a tongue as black as the enchanted rock itself.
He left me there on the shore, screaming and ungrateful; begging of the black rock to call me forth, solemnly, once more.