An Island in His Splendor

The summer after Octavio Paz died, Eric stood on the rocks below Point Dume and tried to cast his heart into the sea. Lips swollen from crying, eyes puffy from sleeplessness, dizzy from grief, he invoked the compact he made as a child with a creature from the depths. His voice croaked. “Flounder, flounder in the sea, come up from the depths for me! Though you may not care for my request, I’ve come to ask it nonetheless.”

The day was still and hot, but a salt wind whipped over the waves and the tide surged to crest around the rocks.  A dark shape rose from the water, bigger even than the last time. An enormous sand dab, the size of a Buick Roadmaster, turned yellowed eyes on the same side of its head towards Eric. The fish’s voice grated like a knife on slate. “It hasn’t quite been a year. I would think the last time would give you pause.”

Eric rolled up the sleeve of his shirt. Iridescent scales shone blue and peacock green against the sand brown of his left arm. He ran his fingers through his naps, winced as they caught a tangle in his kitchen. “I have the power to transfix men’s gaze. I have the power to ensnare hearts. What’s the use if I have to feel like this?”

The sideways mouth opened and closed. “Young love?”

Tears stung Eric’s eyes. “When Andy moved back home last year, everything was gray. Then in April, I met Donte. Not at the Catch, not at the Library, not in heels and satin, but as me. Just me. Outside the Abbey drinking coffee.” Eric hiccupped. “His favorite poet had just died, and there was whiskey on his breath and stubble on his cheek, and he dragged me back into color.”

“What are you asking me?”

Eric pulled at his shirt. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore! I don’t want to care about things! Take the part of me that hurts! I don’t want it.”

The fish’s voice was low and mournful. “You did me a kindness when it was in your power. I will do you a hard kindness now. You do not want to close off your heart.”

“Where were you when my city burned?”

The fish said, “I could make you forget.”

Eric thought of a night in the canyons, the chaparral rising towards the stars like smoke in the blackness. Kisses along the line of his chin. Poems in Spanish. The word pájaro whispered so it fluttered at his throat, and then a murmuration of starlings breaking into clouds and swirls overhead as if they were summoned. He closed his eyes. “I don’t want to forget.”

“You can bring him back. You can make him stay.”

Eric knew both of these things were true. And there was a moment after Donte said he hoped they would remain friends when an ugly, vicious part of Eric wanted Donte to wriggle like a fish on the end of a hook. He shook his head. “I don’t want him as a husk. I don’t want him to stay because he has to. I want him to want to.”

The fish said, “He wouldn’t know the difference.”

“I would know! You said you would help me when I called. Well, I called. Help me not feel like this!”

The fish rasped, “You know the costs.”

“I don’t care if I sprout gills.” Eric sank to his knees. “Just make this stop.”

The fish said, “Compassion is a rare thing. I will not take that from you. But I will teach you a thing.”

The fish said a word that hung in the air and rumbled against the rocky promontory. Eric felt a familiar pain in his right arm; glittering scales sprouted to match his left. The ocean roared. A wave crested and grew narrow as it approached the shore, crashing over Eric and grasping him in an icy hand. He exhaled in surprise. Water constricted around his waist, pressing in on him like a corset. The cold was nearly unbearable until he felt softness against his skin. Instead of wetness, there was silk. The cruel wave had transformed into couture. His bodice was covered in seed pearls and tiny sequins with the same iridescence as the scales on his arms. The gown flowed from his hips into a skirt the green of sea glass. He took a breath, feeling comforted by its snugness. Where there had been confusion, heartache, and the raw resentment of loneliness, Eric felt cool, calm, and confident.

The fish spoke the word again. It shimmered in the air and bloomed as a sigil in Eric’s mind; he knew he could call on that strange, cold wave again.

The fish sunk beneath the surface. Eric heard its voice on the wind. “Clothe yourself in the ocean when the world is too much to bear. Submerged you will remain as sharp, glittering, and cold as an icicle. When you are ready to surface, you shall return intact, but renewed and radiant as the dawn.”

Eric turned his back to the ocean. The sun sank low on the horizon, burnishing his gown bronze and gold. City lights floated across the water as evening came on; curtain call at the Library was at eight.

© 2021 Christopher Caldwell

About the Author

Christopher Caldwell is a queer Black American living abroad in Glasgow, Scotland. His work has appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Strange  Horizons, and Fiyah among others. He is an Ignyte Awards finalist, Clarion West Alumnus, and a recipient of the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship. He is @seraph76 on twitter.