The Big Fish in the Sea
In honor of Edie, who gave me a voice.
By Simone
He had been moving through the darkness away, and away, steady on, traveling not towards the feeding pools, as Great Sea would provide at this time of year, but instead, towards the icier currents far out in the empty distance. Mindful again, his situation came into focus and he feared those machinations within, instinct and the subconscious, were confused or worse, septic, and he jolted forward in a burst of chaos and discomfort. Ah, yes, there it is, he was reminded, that pull in my cheek. He was trying to outrun it, or escape it, or…he wasn’t sure exactly. Unfamiliarity is the catalyst for fear (and fear for flight), and nothing had kept up with him before. Not this long. Not so long as to have lost the memory of when, or more importantly how, the ordeal began, as if it stayed behind, clinging to the incident, waiting to be revisited.
He pressed forward, smoothly and efficiently as possible with no sense save the determination for survival. Steady on, ol’ boy, his father had said, Steady on. Our speed is our greatest ally — that one was easy to recall — and our magnitude, if we’re lucky. He had outgrown his progenitor sooner than his peers and thus had little to fear. He was the illustrious Marlin, king of the sea, bigness and speed his dependable aids. Yet this drag had not let go, and his mind began scoring his instinct’s library for any tome that could answer his question: what has challenged me? He had been inhibited before — when he swam into the current instead of with it for instance — but this drag came from his trail, not his path. Whatever he suffered was inexplicable, foreign and new. Perhaps I am just getting older and weaker? he wondered, but he knew too few migrations to doubt his vigor. This was some other phenomenon; something was slowing him down, like an anchor dragging on the floor. Or was something chasing him? His instincts gushed through their index of possible predicaments. Could this be some evolved tactic by the Mako shark?
A sudden cascade of images sparked in his mind — his father, frenzied opaque water, that peculiar smell — and as he set them in order, he conjured the horrible reality of the sharks' potential. He remembered the Marlin who sacrificed himself to the Mako, knowing he had fathered royalty. Who, calmly facing the inevitable custom of the sea that all must eat, lured the pack away for a vicious buffet. Who saved his posterity from that acute threat, which was now palpable again, fueling his efforts to flee. This is the strength of his memories: that instinct keeps them locked up to preserve their potency for when he’ll need them most. With a flutter of his crescent tail, he sprang away and performed an agile maneuver (one only a virile fish could accomplish), prepared to spear any pursuer. But he saw nothing in the expanse; no shark, no tuna, not even a distant school. Curious, indeed, he thought, briefly shaking the fear, as visceral as it was the first time he felt it (which he had no means of discerning, as time cannot be untangled into something linear when all is always dark). Fear is survival, and he knew to obey it with his most valuable defense: steady on. Don’t look back. Many daggers can defeat the lone sword, his father had said, whom the young fish abandoned to be eaten without a second thought. Steady on.
But this was different, for he had encountered no sharks, not for a whale’s age. His size and strength had become legend among them and the lower fish too, vassals who consented to the appetite of one, for the protection from many. With him around, the sharks were fewer. But this far out there were no lower fish either, and he despaired, for at the thought of it a hunger was beginning to wake within. He could stay on course, hoping for some unlikely sea-tossed tuna, or, unsure of his predicament, dive into the risky murk for the squids. Perhaps the dolphins got it right. Marlin are not like them, who while away merrily in groups unafraid of their place in the sea. He was a solitary gladiator who tucked his lavender fins and slid between the currents with precision. Few could keep pace, and for that the Marlin had some peace. And for my long jaw, he thought, hoping for a reason to use it as he blurred his eyes back into that relaxed vigil—what some creatures would call “sleep”— in order to conserve his energy.
It was getting lighter in the waters when he was roused by the unmistakable play of some dolphins ahead. Knowing that he was too compromised to succeed against an entire pod, he begrudgingly watched them pass overhead and grew lonesome for a friend to help him out of his situation. He had learned to hunt with his mother and as a pair they’d become an extraordinary team, (she would chase the naïve porpoises into his precarious path), and they never went underfed. But you haven’t got a friend, he grumbled, you have only yourself. And you had better find a meal. Now that his internal alarms had inured into a dull, throbbing reality it was possible to gauge the breadth of his fuel (he still had a ways to go), and he was finally able to uncover the memory of the lazy weaving herring he had seen bobbing, that he snatched up easily and that — he recalled it now — triggered the menacing sensation he now disdained. He fretted. Could the lower fish be behind this? He trusted he had recognized the smell of the herring, which he had eaten many times before. He also trusted he knew of all the puffers to avoid, and their kin, plus the rays and the jellies. And yet he was still hurt. This conclusion sparked a veritable riot within. Had his instinct betrayed him? Had the herring now evolved some novel defense, too? There was no sense to be made, no alphabet to piece together into words of understanding, just this anarchy. Distracted and jumbled as he was, he was thrashed sideways by a strong, wintry current, rearing that tedious pull into an intense heat like he’d never encountered before. Having yet been bitten, he could only assume that was it, even though he saw nothing emerge from the stream to have done so. It seared his mind clear of every thought except a roaring Steady On!
The Great Sea had given him nothing to help him face an invisible predator and he cursed her, emasculated and in pain. I will not succumb to this, he defied, sensing an increase of fortitude and an expansion of consciousness. Instinct was not off duty, and he grew sharply alert, storing each sensation into a piece of jigsaw, as the menacing possibility of an open wound lingered in his periphery. He would have the ability to heal in safety once he escaped the puzzling pursuer, but he knew it would be nearly impossible if he didn’t identify it soon. Forget the squid (and the tuna for that matter), I must jump into Vast Above, he thought, to catch sight of the sprite, or perhaps to deter him. Instinct takes a fraction of a thought to decide, and before he had fully set any intention, his course had been altered at an exponential incline through the lightening atmosphere, until, with a final flick of his tail, he erupted out of the water.
He might have made a display of himself, knowing the water running off his blues and purples would transfigure him under that blistering light. But he did not revel as he usually did, for he was intent on identifying his ghostly enemy. Perhaps it will lose its camouflage in the brightness. But nothing emerged after him. Instead, as he turned to pierce the thin ceiling, that wedding veil between gods, he caught sight of something that managed to balance on it in the distance. He slipped back into the waves seamlessly and was steady on again, dismissive of what he had seen. It was just a feather-fish, he surmised, those weightless gliders. He knew these gill-less creatures had the ability to swim where he could not, and gossip atop his roof. Some jumped in like he jumped out, but only to steal their food. In return, the flying fish took to imitating them, but never managed to unstick themselves for long.
But he had no room to muse about these ecological jesters, for his mind had retrieved a dusty, albeit vital recollection. This had not been his first encounter with that kind of beast; one had taken his mother. When he was young and not yet so notable in prowess, the two of them had come upon some food — blast that herring, I should have known — and as always, he let her eat first. Something in the bite had caused her to panic and thrash. She could not stop her need to move steady on, and began circling and circling. It made him sick, but he followed her, staying by her side, unable to offer any assistance to assuage this strange possession, but ready to defend her from anything else. She circled until she was close to the creature, and then beside it, to rest upon its breast. Free me, she would plead, but it had tricked them, and it reached out and struck her, the deadly appendaged creature. Her dark eyes hollowed, like petrified reef, and then there was nothing left to protect, just meat being drawn to its grinder.
The loss of his mother had meant very little to him, but that fish was his hunting partner and lookout too, a great source of security, and that was so much to lose at once. He had realized he would have to accomplish that all on his own from then on out, and he was sorrowful for the burden. But before he dove too far away from a similar fate, something within him gave cause to turn. He couldn’t let a lack of information lead him to make the same unfortunate mistake in the future; he had to go up for reconnaissance. Using every bit of space to accelerate, he leaped high above the feast and captured each surprising detail he could, which instinct now perfectly recalled: it was a turtle-beast upturned with just two dexterous flippers, each like upright starfish, with thin tentacles they used to trap, and gather their prey, as the octopuses do. In the Deep, many called them Shadow-Makers.
Knowing nothing else about them, he had thus far avoided a reunion. His freedom of movement was his only known advantage. Shadow-Makers were quite a bit slower, unable to dive, and thus easy to evade. But fearful of their long claws now at work, he sped away from this rare predator, who stalked from unseen heights and distances — a shadow indeed. Some were longer than the Humpbacks, and yet some even he out-sized. But that was no defense against them, and he would need something more than his speed to defeat the hovering killer. What could possibly help me now? He looked at the weapon that split the water in his way and wondered if it was strong enough to succeed against so formidable a predator. It has in the past, he answered, as his mind flickered with vignettes of former battles, all of which distilled into a montage of a Great White’s eyes, dilated with intent. Even they did not challenge me, he sneered, not since I had defeated their Goliath.
He was already established as a big fish in the sea when he encountered a hag who rivaled his reputation. She had become something of a whispered tale among the old coral, and he wanted access to her teeming fisheries, which were protected by the desolate moat razed with her teeth. She was known as Mariana, for the lecherous way she would hide herself in the cracks and caverns and ambush her prey with a powerful bite (the lanternfish and anglers below disdained the pseudonym). If he wanted to feast unfettered, he would have to face the blood-pirate, and so his nature acquiesced to something risky. It was a by-product of innovation, a manipulation of need, eking the power of hunger over the fear of sharks.
Alone in the wetness he passed by the lower pastures, down through the deadlier currents, exposing himself in an absent way like many lower fish do, letting their sense for food blind their sense for doom (only to be eaten, likely before they are aware of the chase). On this sacrificial hunt, he kept one eye ahead, and one below, expecting that infamous white. She was known as Mariana, for the lecherous way she would hide herself in the cracks and caverns and ambush her prey with a powerful bite (the lanternfish and anglers below disdained the pseudonym). Meandering through her barren territory, he relied on his suspicion that Mariana had not let any fish live long enough to warn her of his speed or his strength. Or my swordsmanship, he thought. Steady on.
As one of the matchless fish, his shine would always elicit attention, and in often dangerous ways. The sharks were tempted by ample flesh and sequin jackets, both of which he bore beneath his long rigid dorsal, rival to their ominous fin. And my scaly coat shimmers brightest, he often prided. But no king finds respite on his proverbial throne; Great Sea had taught him that the crest of the wave is followed closely by its crash. You can only grow more cautious for those coming after you, his mother had likewise warned him. Beauty came with this price, she said, for Marlin are not like the Portuguese-Men-of-War whose mysterious allure is like a dream from which those who lack self-control never wake. Beauty gives us no advantage; our stripes are a target. And even the greatest jellyfish answer to the custom’s rules when the impenetrable tortoises find their appetite.
If they are a target, then a target I will be, he had decided, and he fluttered, sending a shiny ring rippling down his long body. The beacon worked. Out of the black, this scarred behemoth — no doubt Mariana — came for his flank. Surprised as he was, he managed to dodge the toothy torpedo, and sped towards the scattering schoolyard, her humongous body close behind. He hadn’t anticipated such orcan size and prayed for a lack of stamina. Sharks had voracious appetites supported by a sluggish hunt, preying on the wounded and weak. They could execute swift attacks, but lacked perseverance in speed, and it didn’t take long to tire her out. He sensed her hesitancy to continue, and as she began to lag, he slowed, provoking her to one last, sloppy thrust. He spun with precision as she widened her granite teeth in preparation for another violent internment. Grinning, her sight was compromised and in that moment he felt victory course through his fins. Coiling himself down beneath her blind trajectory, he positioned himself precisely, skewering her from gill to gut. Immediately she stopped swimming, but her momentum carried her forward, and in that fugacious suspension, as the lust in her eyes faded into awareness and then humility and then peace, she was beautiful. And then she turned up and let her blood out, summoning the cannibals.
He did not gloat, for there is no celebration of death in the deep. But in that moment, when he left the familiar smell behind, there was no need for fight or flight: he knew not one of her kin would leave their feast to come after its butcher. Not now. He had won the confidence to swim there in peace, but he knew the scavengers had kept their memory of his blade. Someday a shiver will come for me as I did Mariana, and they will tear my flesh from my spine. He too would have to acquiesce to the custom, but he was not prepared to on this day.
He felt his muscles invigorate with this former achievement. I will do the same to this Great Black that has come for my flank, he thought, though pain shrieks with distraction and hunger beats at my attention. It urged him to turn around and follow the warm currents, unaware of any peril save its own emptiness. But steady on was at the helm, and so hunger quieted. I can grind much longer than this, he boasted, and my would-be captor will grow too tired to keep up. I’ll show this beast what fish can do. And with this renewed resolve, he streamlined his lavender fins and amplified the beat of his tail.
As he traveled, instinct withdrew its focus onto the sensation within, hoping to uncover some escape from the Shadow-Maker’s grasp. He could feel tiny vibrations reverberating along the grip and began to wonder if it was some kind of mammalian echolocation. It did seem intent on maintaining a delicate connection. When he remained at a steady pace, the vibrations were constant, content and patient. If he sped forward they relaxed completely, but it never let go. Only when he slowed in fatigue did they exert themselves, coaxing him one way or the other. Perhaps if I am inconsistent with my direction, I could exhaust its balancing act? But his mother had tried to escape it likewise, and it drew her in efficiently to itself. He would resist the same urge. These Shadow-Makers must play at a long game for food, he figured, but it didn’t make sense. If it's got a claw in me, why not scoop me up? He began to wonder if the Shadow-Maker couldn’t make up its mind to kill so lovely a fish. Maybe it wasn’t play he sensed, but pity, and if that was the case, he would seize that small gift of hesitancy, just as he did with Mariana, to face his opponent.
But he needed all the advantages he could muster and decided to wait. A crepuscular sensation had informed him that Vast Above was growing dark. His eyes were attuned for tenebrous waters, and he was sure the Shadow-Makers relied on the brightness to hunt. Let me just relax at this pace, he thought, and store up some of my strength. I will have to be quick or it might outwit me. The pain was deeper now, but manageable, even alongside his frustrated hunger, and with no more evidence of an open wound either, he had forgotten about potential sharks. He dropped quickly into a mindless, meal-less time, until he sensed the peak of darkness and stirred.
It was time for war.
He began his offensive with an aggressive jolt and felt the tension completely go for a moment. Ah, I caught it unaware, he celebrated, and sharpened his climb, emerging from the water in a combative burst. He aimed to startle the creature into making a mistake or revealing some weakness, but was disheartened instead by his own diminished vitality. He reached just a fraction of his usual height. You must forget that, stupid fish, this is not a mating dance. You will die for your pride. He cursed Great Sea for bestowing him the shimmer of her skin, and her bigness and mutability as well. Pride was merely an inescapable character trait; a symptom of his design. And so he jumped and jumped and jumped, each time struggling to get as far out of the waters as the time before, unable to do anything but tire himself in the hope of revelation. He noticed first that this Shadow had only one appendage manning the hunt, and he felt a swell of confidence; one tentacle was manageable. Again and again he leaped, discovering that the Shadow-Maker was no turtle or feather-fish, or any organism. It was a shell inhabited by a large hermit, some flotsam deceiving a sucker. Again in the air, he watched the thing move—no longer just one flipper, but an entire beast of its own — and almost laughed at how clumsy and abrasive it was inside its floating home. The multifarious schools move in perfect orchestration, he thought, and felt pity for this graceless creature. But the pity did not linger; it molted its empathy and exposed a heated grit, for he had learned enough to be sure: it was that singular, swim-less beast who, with some unseen and enigmatic spear, had tricked the fish and now ensnared him.
Sinking back into the sea, exhausted, he slipped into a mitigating current. It was colder than he liked, but he needed to rest. Doubt, that creeping betrayer, was beginning to suggest it would be impossible—that some harbinger of the gods had come after him, some immortal summoner reckoning his pride. But once again, it relaxed its pull, as if it had no agenda but to follow him. Why not pull me in, unsealy prowler? What are you after, if not food? He had seen the carcasses of flying fish and dolphin devoured by the beast. Let me alone so I can eat too! he cried. Desperation was a new friend, and it comforted him down into a quiet that kept only base functions running. He let the Great Sea carry him steady on; he no longer had the strength to do it himself.
Unaware of their origin or purpose, he dreamed. Images and memories played through his mind. He saw his father and mother in the distance, but they turned on their side, immobilized and ghastly. He raced after the mirage when suddenly there was a pack of Mariana’s, one hiding in every direction he turned, eyes blood red and leaking, each with a gruesome trench running down her middle. One scar opened in retribution, spitting bile at him, ribs like hungry teeth protruding from the gums of her gut, and she swallowed him into a dank chasm. He slashed and squirmed at the nothingness until a luminescence materialized on the walls of her belly. Without hesitations he sped towards them, intent on piercing her from within, but they were dry and rigid, and he shuddered against the impermeable flesh. Panicked, he fled from wall to wall, chasing the perimeter, trying to find some exit, only to discover a familiar beast, that swimless squid, that upright star, suddenly waiting for him — impossible! He fixed his aim, desperate to strike first, mind ablaze in combat, only to witness the vision dissolve into an ink that disoriented his senses. He struggled to right himself but the faster he swam towards the surface, the quicker he descended. Flustered and flailing, he tried to move in another direction, but a paralysis prevented him from anything except anticipating the collision with a supernaturally approaching sea floor. The rocks grew flat-toothed faces, mouths inhabited by slugs, and he twisted and squirmed to no avail. All he managed to do was point himself spear first at the ghouls; he would own his death. He lunged with this kamikaze, but startled himself into stark reality instead.
Uneasy as he felt by the haunt, it had helped conjure a memory, the details of which had puzzled him before, but now gave him hope: his assailant was mortal indeed. It had happened once when the Great Sea had become suddenly and exceptionally angry, so enraged that all her tenants descended away from her torrent to pray (when she expressed herself like this there was always a tranquility below — sharks and rays hovering solemnly alongside the shrimp and mackerel, while crustaceans and other bottom-feeders shimmied under the sandy carpet, eyes unblinking). On this occasion the spontaneous menagerie waited together, and together caught sight of something ugly and strange floating benignly toward the floor. Curiosity drowned caution, and they inspected it; even the seahorses found it intricate and remarkable. It was a creature not of their world and many backed away from, fearful of divine sorcery. Its tail looked severed in half, and it sported two oddly heavy fins. It had eyes like the seals and the mouth of a gulping catfish. Straggly abnormal seaweed clung to it in many places, but no gills were found, nor dorsal or pelvic fins. Not even a blowhole like the air-breathers. It was fleshy, but it was dead, and no one thought to bite at it. The creature remained exactly where it was, an offering upon the altar.
Other curiosities fell in the same way, and the sea floor shifted uneasily, though it seemed to freeze when a Shadow-Maker, with a mass unlike any they had seen, was swallowed and broke its back against the reef. Now the pieces were fitting together in his mind: that dead creature was of the same kind as his assailant. These fleshless shells saved the Land-Beasts from the anger of Great Sea. The vessels protected the powerless wretches from their enemy below. That was why it did not come for me. That was why it waited. It was afraid. But for hunger it would follow him to the brink? It is for hunger I am even here. And forgetfulness.
Though death is ultimately unpredictable, she can be unmistakable in her approach, and the fish knew she was waiting for him patiently at the vessel, just as she had his mother. He wondered if the Land-Beasts experienced the same fearful premonition when they witnessed Vast Above grow irritable with Great Sea, his lover contorted in fury? This beast had killed him, not there in that moment (that was the nature of sorcery), but there was no escaping it now. Dull milk-thief, trickster, servant of death, blind with arrogance, he lamented, how naïve you are to flout the shackles of nature, our inescapable fate. No Mako or Marlin or Man could outrun it. Only the custom reigned, enthroned by the hungriest of them all: Divine Sea.
And she will be fed, he promised. Steady on hadn’t yet surrendered, but with death looming inescapably, he became aware of the choice to give up the current’s assistance, since it offered no salvation. Silencing flight was the last choice his father made, too. This Land-Beast is formidable indeed, with his claws now home in my gut (he admired the man for his persistence in making him a meal), but I know tricks too. He considered diving, dragging the lunged creature with him to airless places, but he feared it would release him and he would be left to bleed, forgotten to the lower fish and the sharks too, his beauty a single sparkle in the wide shimmering water. Instead, against prior conviction, he chose to circle. There was relief in the familiar and since he had watched his mother suffer likewise, he knew how the beast would behave. It has been waiting for me to do this and will slowly coerce my path toward itself. Let it think it has won, he thought, and I will wear away at its resolve. He will try to pull me in, but I will do the same. He could tell the Land-Beast was weary too, as the vibrations had diminished in vigor. But his weapon was still sharpened and unsheathed, and he wondered if it could prove effective against that cheater’s leash, device of sleight? If he could dismember the beast, he’d be free to sink it with him. In my world, it’s no more frightening than Mariana, let alone a singular krill, and Great Sea has an appetite for them.
It was impossible to see what held him, though — part of the trickery no doubt — and proved hard to catch, as it always followed so stiffly behind him. He was persistent, though, and figured to shorten his wide arc just enough to turn deftly upon himself and swing his spear, somewhat blindly, hoping to sever anything. It worked, in that he discovered the thin line, but he could not break it. It was tougher than the swordfish’s and he quickly realized he didn’t have the strength to cut through. How clever to prepare so sturdy and far-reaching a spear, he admitted, cleverer than the dolphins even, to fashion and utilize things outside of yourself.
They possessed the strength of creation, he realized. No wonder the Great Sea in all her glory, and envious Vast Above, hated them: they too were creators, parents to all he knew, but what the Land-Beasts built, what their cleverness could sculpt, tamed the gods both into functions of nature. The beasts harnessed their moods, turning their great power into mere tools for consumption. They could not swim so they built their Shadow-Makers. They could not bite, so they fashioned their spears. They could not chase, so they developed their tricks. And they cannot be satisfied, so they chase me from horizon to horizon. They needed the catch, not just so they could eat (abusers of tradition), but to feel powerful against the deep that claims so many of their fathers. They had stolen retribution from Great Sea and Vast Above and used it against them.
Now, it is the king’s turn, he determined. The lower fish live their short lives eating and eating until they become eaten and are forgotten by the one who dined, as he had all his meals. The custom keeps no record of its undertaking, but he resisted accepting this. He couldn’t. He would not give up. He was getting closer now, and higher, with each circle. As soon as he was close enough he saw the beast, wrinkled and scarred, bleeding and feeble. Just one old man did this to me? He darted away just as the beast tried to yank him onto his vulnerable side. What a pitiful creature to suffer so much for a meal. Pitiful indeed — he suffered for it too.
He came around again and looked at the man’s face. With death so close now his mind began to magnify — a mountain spitting lava unto itself. It was as if he knew those eyes, which shined like his coat, and his arms as strong as he was. Jump in, old man, and the Sea will hold you. Show me your muted scales and I’ll spear you too. But it did not bite.
He completed a third circle and recognized the man. He had always known those eyes, like the crystal sea, exhumed from the snapshot above his mother’s corpse all those years ago. It was this same man, less scarred, less weary (with a small man beside him) who took her from the sea. Oh, how their eyes light up with the scent of grandeur. How they give up their lives to usurp us from the sea. They cannot leave something so beautiful alone; they must possess it, like greedy crabs. He jolted out of reach.
Four times now he got close to the man, who tugged at him with diminishing strength. He too is exhausted, and I am foolish, trusting my strength. I will die for a bite of food. Is that what I was made for, poor me? As he turned away, he read affection upon the rebel’s face, and sensed his own in return. Love! What a feeling to have so close to the end! Oh! My precious father! What love there was in sacrifice. Perhaps this old man will have pity on me? Or is it too late for that?
A fifth time he passed. This man pits himself against my strength for more than just a bite — he has plenty stinking around him, giving him strength where I had none. He covets my stripes; beauty gives us no advantage. He’s after my grandeur; our stripes are a target. It rang within. He would try to pull the man in — at least Great Sea would be satisfied; she was untrickable.
On the sixth circle he sensed a hesitancy in the man — that late and irrational pity. Not now, old man! Not after all this. You weakly arrogant beast to have chased me so. Your remorse will undo you. The custom will take you too, soon by the lines in your skin. But you do not want food, for that you would have abandoned me long ago. You want dominion over Great Sea and I, I am her bleeding heart. Rip it out, that’s what you aim to do, and swallow it like she did. Drown me within and wear my vertebral crown. The man may not have a great dorsal fin, but he was just like the Marlin who knew now that glory alone had split Mariana. A seventh circle began. Or maybe I’m just like him.
Tired, weak, winding, dying, he chose to relish the feeling of the saltwater through his gills as he effortlessly braided the currents. He marveled at his long jaw, no more useful than a beluga's now, but inspiring nonetheless, as his arc guided him back towards the vessel and he looked at the man. If I can make one more circle, the man will falter, he discerned, and we will both become meals for the scavengers. The custom caught up at last. He stretched his fins, swelling himself like a spectacular blowfish as best he could, and felt his majesty. My stripes are a target, and cruel fate has aimed well, the one hungry predator whom he had ignored. But I am legend in the water, he bemused, knowing he would be replaced by some other magnificent fish soon enough. As he approached, the man became bigger in his sight, and his smallness more evident, but as the monarch prepared to turn away and steal all hope from the pauper’s shallow eyes, he saw his own majesty reflected back at him. Each of his scales and spiny fins, his dorsal crest and marlinspike, all pearls between his eyelids. I am the fish they will pass down to their spawn, he realized, and their spawn’s spawn. They will eat me and I will give them my strength, and they will digest my pride into stories, inked for eons. I won’t be locked up, like the other predators, fading in a dying tuna’s memories, but let loose into the sea of man’s imagination a hundred times a day. They will remember my stripes, and they will say to one another, “there has never been such a fish.”
And he turned, not away, but offered up his side.
Simone is a Bronx born, New England raised, Vegas transplant whose own intersectionality between religion and identity informs most of his storytelling. Whether writing fiction, drama or a burlesque act, he has developed a penchant for reshaping familiar stories. Simone is the Associate Artistic Director at Vegas Theatre Company in the Arts District, where his parody-play CLUElesque debuted in 2024. “The Big Fish in the Sea” is Simone’s first published short story.
