Love Deep Like The Sea (English)

ATLANTIC

It was without question a delicate undertaking to get the fish man off the boat. Zhenhai managed to organize a wheelbarrow to carry his catch, which he pretended to others he wanted to examine. But instead of going to the refrigerated warehouse, his path naturally led to his car. He wouldn't stuff a human being into a cold storage. And how it would affect his system was also completely unknown. Zhenhai acted as one would when rescuing a person from distress at sea. But in this case, it was not the sea that had caused the distress, but rather the ship and the net in which the merman had become entangled.

Even in the darkness it was still busy at the harbor. Fortunately, his catch did not wake up, and remained unconscious; again and again Zhenhai lifted the tarp, felt for his pulse, felt reassured when he found he was still alive. And each time the plastic tarp rustled, he made sure there was no one nearby who could ask him about what was underneath. And at that moment, the amusing thought crossed his mind that he would be a really terrible criminal. He couldn't help laughing for a moment.

Excellent, that certainly hardly looked suspicious: if his thousand neighbors weren't all so jaded by the already crazy life of the city, one or two would have bothered to turn their heads, but this way Zhenhai could fumble for his keys in his jacket pocket at his leisure, while a heavy plastic bag leaned directly on him. Fortunately, at least the beginnings of a fin showed; then no one really got the idea that he was a murderer. Murder of fish, that hardly counted in the eyes of people, and even if he had been dragged to court for it at some point - he was only an accessory after the fact.

It was not unusual to buy a big fish from the market and put it on ice in the bathtub. These weren't usually fish that weighed over a hundred kilos, but Zhenhai somehow managed to drag the merman down the hallway and into the elevator. The next minute it took to get to the seventh floor was probably the most uncomfortable minute in his life. An older woman came up, gave the young man a stern look when he greeted her a moment too late because the plastic bag was blocking his view again and he was having all the trouble he could to keep it upright. She said nothing. She didn't even stare at his catch. Her condemning gaze was all on Zhenhai. Depraved youth.

Meanwhile, sweat was pouring down his forehead. Was he really doing the right thing? She got off on the fourth floor, and they were alone again. Zhenhai checked for a pulse. He was still alive. As a sea creature, he must need water soon.

He had to hurry.

Zhenhai dragged the wrapped tarp across the floor the last few meters to the apartment, searched for his key again with a loud clank, opened the door, and dragged the merman inside. Exhausted, he sank against the door from the inside. Fuck.

A light breeze blew into the living room. Zhenhai saw why right away, too. Obviously he had left the window open. Lucky for him it was summer and there had been no rain storms on land. But he really had to work on having a regular routine. That probably included closing windows.

Silence.

Outside the window he could hear the seagulls screeching. For them, no night's rest existed, they sometimes screeched all night long. Most of the time Zhenhai slept with the window open, he was already used to the silent charges. And somehow it gave him a sense of peculiar home. To him, who had hardly been able to grow up farther from the sea. The town that had been his home for the longest time, where he had grown up, was usually filled with the sound of singing cicadas, of cracking walnuts and shallow drumming rain. He hated it when someone imitated that sound with their fingertips. Impatient people often did that, his boss did. He much preferred the sound of screaming seagulls.

"Okay..." Zhenhai opened the tarp, looked the merman in the face. Again he checked the pulse, this time at the carotid artery. Zhenhai lowered his head into his neck and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, the merman was still there. Not a fantasy.