2019-05-31 - Barnabas and the Interloper

Barnabas was a fish.

Barnabas was a green sunfish, to be precise. And Barnabas was enjoying his day.

It was a weekday, which meant he had a very busy task list to complete before the light went away. Most of the morning had been spent hiding around a rock, which was absolutely the third most important thing to be done. Then, he’d moved on to hiding around a submerged branch. This was also very important. Maybe second-most. Maybe even first! Barnabas was very good at hiding around branches, after all.

And he took a certain level of pride in a job well done. He knew all the tricks after a lifetime of experience. He could hide beneath it. Or on top of it. Or even to the left of it. A small spark in his brain once told him to try hiding on the right hand side, but Barnabas thought that was silly. And didn’t know what a hand was. So he ignored the idea.

Barnabas ignored a lot of ideas. But Barnabas was okay with that. As long as he had a rock, a branch, or some plant life to hide around and the occasional piece of popcorn someone dropped from the big skybridge above, Barnabas was content. Barnabas was happy. And Barnabas was certainly not about to close his eyes and go to that weird dream place he sometimes went. Because Barnabas was very, very busy. And didn’t have eyelids.

But Barnabas couldn’t help it. The seed of contemplation had been planted. And so, floating gently on the left of his favorite hiding branch, Barnabas thought about that strange place. It was like a pond, but smaller. The water clear but seeming a little stagnant. There was also no flow to it, just an occasional sloshing about as whatever held the water moved. There was no big light from above, either. Only two little bits of light, usually floating in front of him.

But what light they were. They weren’t blinding or empty, not like the abovelight. Barnabas could see things in the light. None of them made sense to him, not having a concept of ‘hands’ or ‘town’ or ‘couches’ or ‘the Pourhouse’, and he certainly had no concept of ‘words’, let alone what the hell a British Accent sounded like. Or what hell was. But what Barnabas did understand was ‘Fast’. He’d had to move fast sometimes. He tried his best not to, which is why he was usually very busy with hiding, but sometimes his branch moved away, or there was a big problem in his pond that meant he needed to find a new branch very, very quickly.

And whatever Barnabas could see through those two little viewholes was very similar to his idea of ‘Fast.’ The little bit of blurring on parts he wasn’t looking at, and the objects all around going by at an extreme pace. Barnabas might have felt a tinge of excitement if he happened to know what his pond looked like from above, but… Barnabas had never seen his pond from above. All he saw was green, and tall, tall things that kind of looked like some of the plants he hid in at the bottom of his pond sometimes.

And the big skybridge that food sometimes fell from. It looked very different from up here. From below, it was just a big line. It didn’t curve. This thing curved, so naturally, it wasn’t Barnabas’ skybridge. Because if it was, Barnabas might have made a connection between two little fishy neurons. Barnabas might have had a dawning realisation that wherever the thing he was in was going sure seemed to be very close in location to where his most favorite of branches was. The one he was floating next to.

The one he had been floating next to.

Barnabas wanted to be back there. He wanted to be back there like he’d wanted nothing else in his little fishy life. His weird water here was sloshing around like a… Barnabas didn’t know what. Maybe something that spun around a lot like that crab he’d seen once that had a limp. And the view was getting much, much closer to the water.

Maybe, Barnabas thought, if this weird place goes into the water there, it would be really easy for Barnabas to go home to his branch. Barnabas really wanted to be by that branch. Maybe if he pictured the branch really, really hard, Barnabas could-

-Be back by his branch! He was! He was back! Barnabas and Branch! TOGETHER AGAIN!

And Barnabas was thinking about trying to hug the branch. Just drape his little fin over the wood. Show it how much he cared. That he was sorry for thinking about that strange place again. Barnabas had learned what it meant to feel sorry.

And Barnabas might have learned something else about himself if it wasn’t for the face that plunged into the water from above, black hair streaming out and the cigarette in the corner of the man’s face not even being discarded before he threw his face in.

The deep brown eyes, wide open, immediately settled on the fish whose eyes looked right back. Barnabas looked surprised. But Barnabas was a fish. He always looked surprised.

A bundle of bubbles streamed from the man’s mouth as his eyebrows furrowed. He’d looked as surprised as Barnabas had for a moment, but a conclusion was soon reached that this was indeed the fish he had been looking for, and Carver did not look best pleased.

Barnabas couldn’t read lips, so the message passed on went entirely unheeded as he decided that now was a good time to do that ‘fast’ thing he remembered. Old branch was good, but a new branch deeper in the pond would be even better. Yes. Barnabas had a lot to do today, but top of his new list was ‘Hide on the right of a new branch.’

On the right? Yes. That seemed smart. That seemed really clever.

Carver threw his head back, bringing it out of the water and sending a stream of hair and pondwater flying backwards over his shoulders as he took in a hefty lungful of air, bringing a hand up to touch at the corner of his mouth where his cigarette once sat, now lost to the depths.

He didn't know what screaming "Get out of my head you goddamned fish" would do, exactly, but if it helped in any way, shape or form, it was worth the loss.