The Boy
- Jan 26, 2024
- 6 min read
by Kevin Kirwan
The boy stood alone in front of the massive tank and considered the creature that stared back at him from the other side of the glass. Neither the human nor the fish were particularly remarkable or noteworthy to those who were moving about in the gallery around them. The boy was seven, or would be some four days into the future, and it was this upcoming anniversary that had occasioned his visit to the aquarium on this particular day. As for the fish, well she was younger, but age is a relative concept and so she was also considerably wiser. A fact that the boy would come to appreciate more and more as the years that still stretched out before them came to pass.
The boy had come to the aquarium with his father, a well-meaning but easily distracted man who like most of his kind had convinced himself that he was an exceptional parent despite all evidence to the contrary. Had he a child less independent, less capable of self-stimulation, the results might well have been disastrous for both, but as it was the two of them got on well enough. Which is to say that although father and son had become separated in the mass of bodies that had crowded into the main gallery of the aquarium when the doors had opened an hour and a half hour before, neither had bothered to notice that fact as of yet.
The boy was tall and unnaturally slim with a shock of curly brown hair and an inviting gap-toothed smile. He wore canvas tennis shoes with white ankle socks, his favorite pair of jeans, and a tattered orange baseball cap with the word Oilers stitched across the front. And he was wearing a sweater. In fact the boy always wore sweaters, or shirts with collars that he could fasten tight about his neck. Turtlenecks were his favorite although he was quite certain by this point in time that he wasn’t a turtle.
The tank before him was enormous, 200,000 gallons according to the pre-recorded voice that was playing on a loop through the overhead speakers. There were hundreds of fish of every imaginable size, shape, and hue darting and weaving and drifting around the vertical coral reef that formed the center of the exhibit. And above it all, dozens of sea turtles, air breathers, basking on the surface beneath the observation decks.
But for all of that the boy’s eyes never left this one particular fish.
She was about the size of a small dinner plate, rather circular in shape, and primarily white with a broad black mask that ran vertically down across her eyes and another that arched up across her withers. Her fins were bright yellow, and she had thin black pinstripes that ran down from the top of her body ending just above her abdomen — streaks of black paint on a newly whitewashed wall thought the boy.
He slipped a finger inside the red woolen collar of his sweater and ran it from the front of his neck to the back, first on the one side then on the other. The gallery around him seemed suddenly too close, the press of the bodies and the heat from the overhead lights were making it difficult to breathe.
The movement, when it came, was almost imperceptible, just one small sweep of one small fin, like a painter considering her first brush stroke. The fish turned, her eyes never leaving those of the boy, anxious perhaps at what his reaction might be. The scar was jagged and ran lengthwise down the newly exposed side of her body and it caused the boy to wonder suddenly how the fish had ended up in this place. He thought it likely that the event that had marked her so indelibly must certainly be a part of that story. Just as it was a part of his.
He smiled encouragingly and lifted his shirt. The line was thick and puckered and red. It began just below his sternum, cut diagonally up and across his chest, and then disappeared into the folds of his sweater. In time it would fade, or so they’d told him. But the heart that they’d given him was not a human one and so he knew better.
The fish returned to her previous position and the two of them considered one another anew.
The gallery around them grew quiet as the crowds thinned, families dispersing to the food courts, or exiting back out into the early afternoon sunshine and whatever further adventures awaited them. And the boy was growing drowsy. He hadn’t taken his medications since the day before and he’d been too excited that morning to eat breakfast. A dangerous combination if his doctors were to be believed. He leaned forward, pressing both hands against the glass, his breath condensing on the cool surface. Three inches. Could he simply pass through it? Expand the molecules of his body, loosen his atomic structure, deconstruct his DNA and slide effortlessly between the silica, the tetrahedrons of indeterminate arrangement, loosely bonded, somewhat ambivalent, wholly amorphous and lacking the commitment of a true solid? It could be done. In theory. He’d read all about it. He’d done his homework. But he had no clue as to how one would actually accomplish such a thing.
He watched enviously as the fish breathed in. Water, soft, cool, dense, and saturated with life-giving oxygen flowed through her. He hooked his finger into his collar again and pressed it in through the flap of skin that covered the first of the three openings on that side of his neck. The mucus that coated the inner surface of his gills was thick but much too warm. The blood that flowed through them now was sluggish.
The heart that they’d given him had been taken from the body of a large but ultimately unlucky sea creature, species not specified, that had become entangled in a fisherman’s net, alive but mortally injured. A sad but serendipitous event, as the heart that the boy had been intended to receive that same day had ultimately been deemed inviable. He’d heard the doctors talking about it when they’d thought him already unconscious. The heart was a strong one, but one not suited perhaps for the rigorous life of a small child.
A sudden thought struck him, an obvious impediment to the success of his efforts that for some reason had thus far escaped his attention. He removed his sweater, his t-shirt, shoes, socks, pants, and underwear, folding each piece of clothing in turn. He placed his cap atop the pile and returned his attention to the task at hand.
Naked and newly hopeful, eyes closed and mind quiet, the boy resumed his exploration of the barrier. But there were questions still unanswered, doubts that refused to be quenched. Not as to the physics involved, rather with regards to the existential realities that underlay them. Questions about stasis, and the ambiguities of ionic attraction. And the recognition of belonging.
He jumped as the hand came down on his bare shoulder. It was warm against his suddenly cool skin, and it lingered there as he pushed himself away from the glass.
The girl was tall and thin. Her hair was short, shorter than the boy had ever seen on a girl, and blond to the point of being white. She had green eyes, and skin so pale it was almost translucent. Like the boy she wore no clothes and also like him she evinced no sense of modesty, false or otherwise, with regards to that fact.
The boy hazarded a glance back at the tank and was wholly unsurprised to find that the two of them were alone.
The girl’s breath was warm and familiar against his cheek. He marveled at the feel of his hand in hers, at the sensation of her fingertips tracking across his chest as they traced the dreadful lines that had come to define him. She turned so that he could see her better, just a small movement, almost imperceptible. The scar that ran down her side was jagged, and ill-formed, and long since healed.
She returned to her previous position and the two of them considered one another anew.
~
On the far side of the now nearly empty gallery a man was speaking with one of the docents, no doubt wondering in his own casual way what had become of his wayward son. He hadn’t yet noticed the neat pile of clothing that sat below the viewing porthole in the shadows on the opposite side of the room, or the ragged orange baseball cap, or the two-small butterflyfish, one with eyes full of something indecipherable, watching him intently from the other side of the glass. His only concern in that moment was for the well-being of his boy.
Perhaps in time that would be enough.
Kevin Kirwan is a recent escapee from Los Angeles, now comfortably ensconced in the hinterlands of Vermont. Handy in the kitchen. And in the garden. Good with kids, better with dogs, amazing with cats (two of each). All around music junky, so-so guitar player. Former helicopter tour and charter pilot. Current full-time reader and writer of short(ish) fiction and long(ish) novels.
