Fishies

“Come on, little fishies.” Whistled my customer, as his unstable blue eyes probed the waters. “Come on now.”


My cheeks were rubber in the bitter cold. The wind slapped them repeatedly, knocking me into the railing of the drifting boat. The icy waters splashed against the sides, and my eyes took in a sticky helping of salt.

“Anything good?” I squeaked.

“Depends on what’s in here.” Spoke the curious man of about 25 (my age), inspecting the numerous darting eyes that feasted their gaze on him through the net.


Slimy insides spilled out across the deck. Before the sun went down we had all the fish gutted and cleaned. The man would still work at them after dark though. While the fisher observed the sunset, a gutted organism he’d been toying with slipped into the water. His bony hands were over the railing thrashing around for it before I knew what happened. Then, we saw the little mutilated thing swim off into the deep, with no heart and no gills. Yet it swam straight and positive towards its destination: food, I think, that it would never be able to swallow. It wagged its tale weakly, and bobbed up and down, its open belly filling with water. It was truly horrifying. We watched it merge with the black. I told myself I never wanted to see something like that again, so I kept my eyes off the waters…
Unhinged by the whole ordeal, I asked the quiet figure how it was possible. He shrugged, and passed it off as a curious ‘phenomenon’. He dubbed it a ‘crazy little fishy’.
Now his eyes were fixed tightly on mine, occasionally drifting to another target, not unlike the unfocused fluttering of a fishes’ eyes when it’s gutted.

“I’ve found them.”

“Found what sir?”

“The bigger fish…!” The man said, grinning madly and flicking his dense fish-eyes back and forth.


We went through the mechanical motions again. Empty the net, slit in the belly, take out the stomach, and end with the heart. We did it differently though. He started with the eyes.

“Yes… yes… big fish. Good…” The man mumbled while popping out the heart of one fish, though I noticed he was working slower than usual.

But he kept mumbling the same old phrases… mumbling, mumbling… eventually he slowed his work completely, and his hands were still. But he kept mumbling, and whispering…
Eventually I realized he wasn’t talking about today’s catch.


The hands moved by themselves now. Slit, stomach, heart… the same motions were programmed into my fingers, and they followed it perfectly. When I came to the last fish, my eyes examined my surroundings to break from the code. They were greeted by fresh winds, black waves, steel railings, and the man’s slimy eyes. Looking right into mine.

The pupils hung there like a dead man hanging from a noose. Hung there… hung there… hanging… as I sliced open the belly of the last Salmon, I dropped the knife and my eyes widened and convulsed feverishly as he, not breaking his stare once, spoke his age-old fishing whispers:

“Come on, little fishy.”


The man whistled loudly, cackling in between the whistled notes, picked up the knife, and lunged. I flopped on the deck. He went careening into one of the controls, and the boat roared and sped off at top speed. My head cracked against the spilling fish blood. In the chaos, the customer lost his footing and the sticky knife landed right next to my horizontal body. I snatched it up and slit his belly. With no knowledge of what to do, and only a sense of peril to act on, I just stabbed away. He only muttered the same words through his dying smile:

“Come on, little fishy… come on…”


Caked with a slippery film of blood, both our bodies slid soundlessly off the speeding vehicle. The icy waters ate away at my focus, at my raw thought, but I just swam. My sanity bled out into the treacherous waters that had become the tomb of so many a careless swimmer. Not me. I wasn’t going to die in this circus of blue. No… I just swam… and didn’t look back.

I’d always wanted to escape… escape on that vessel. I could still hear it whaling its motors as I dragged myself onto the sandy beach… part of some island I think. Although I couldn’t see it, I knew the island was small… and foreign. Finally the roaring subsided. Just panting and Seagulls. I suppose I finally escaped. This little island was as good as a boat and some fishing nets. Better, maybe. Guess I’d have a lot of time to think about it. Here… right here… safe and sound.

Nothing, at first, that’s what I saw when I looked back. My eyes began to fester with shadows as the color washed from my face. Then the water splashed unevenly around some object fighting the waves. No, the customer. A weak, pathetic paddling was the chosen form of movement, but its swimming was fast and positive towards its destination, even though its body filled with water through the open cuts. This ‘crazy little fishy’ was impossibly making its way in the small blue waves.

Towards shore.




---The End---