Who wants a fish? ... and other tales

Who wants a fish?

Who wants a fish?

'Other fish in the sea' they said but I didn't want another fish all I wanted was my baked salmon, fresh, easy to eat and ready to commit, the one that I had let slither out of my hands like an eel.

'He was a jerk,' my mother had screamed in my face 'The boy never loved you, No Sir, he never did love you the way I do', I watched as my best friend agreed and added to my mothers drama with the wisdom that came in a bottle of cheap red wine leaving me with no choice other than to nod my head like a dummy although I knew that he wasn't (cheap) and that he did (love me) and It was this constant drone of consolation, excessive cheeriness of married friends, an overdose of alcohol, the not so accidental set ups combined with long work hours and all too short weekends that made me do it.

So on a bright day on my way to work humming a tune, I thought nothing as I rode my bike straight into the ocean with the smugness of a cat and the salty after taste of the pretzel I'd had for breakfast in my mouth and I had quite enjoyed the feeling of sinking to the bottom like a dead fish.

They say that in the minutes before ones dying moment, one sees flashes of their own sad lives and I'm not sure who said this but whoever did they were wrong.

I didn't see anything, I didn't see my graduation speech, my pimpled prom date gushing at me, I didn't see that horrible moment when I lost my virginity, my first job, my paycheck or my mom.

Nothing

I only saw him and even as I was drowning I remembered our first date, our first kiss and my first stupid mistake of cheating on him while he had been away.

Images of us kept repeating themselves in my head and with each image I felt like I was being stabbed in the gut by Smith, the friendly neighborhood fishmonger and at that moment I was ready to reach my watery grave but unfortunately I was reborn at the bottom of the ocean.

I was no fish but I had been saved by one

'Why did you do it?' the fish with a curl on its upper lip and arrogant white stripes on its forehead asked of me

'My life is too good to have it ruined by my well wishers, all the cheap sympathy, couldn't take it anymore'

'Ah I see, Was he a good man?'

'A Good Man? He was the best there ever was'

'Then let's get you out of here, there are fish a-plenty in here but not the ones that you looking for'

'I dunno, just swim along, let me die in peace'

'If only there were peace in such a death' he curled his lips and sat beside me letting out air bubbles out of a pipe

It was the funniest thing that I had ever seen, even funnier than the time that I had slipped on the rain wet alley in Amsterdam and fallen straight into his strong arms and looking into his big blue eyes I had known that I had fallen hard, yes, this was much funnier that that.

Shuddering at that sudden jolt of a memory, I let out bubbles from my nose as the fish watched me

'Well now I know you definitely want to go back, darling, find your man and for the love of love itself, keep him this time'

It was comforting to see laughter from a fish and he wouldn't stop until I was deposited safely on the rocky surface where I was left blue faced, oxygen deprivation I think it was but coming back into life was a different sort of feeling, I felt like I had been lifted from the deepest misery and as I lay there I had my purpose in life restored.

Yup, I would find my man and this time, just like the fish had begged of me, I would keep him and tell him the funny story of how a fish had saved my life and he would laugh.

Everything would be ok with the world again because, like someone had once said, 'Fuck you, he was my sea'.