Bungee

Mermaids

TRIX WAS waiting for Moko round the corner from the main gates of the college. He was hyped like Moko had never seen him before.

“I’ve seen bloody mermaids today boyo, I swear to you,” he said without pause.

“And what were they doing up here in town? Is there a sale on at Andy’s Angel Aquarium?” Moko replied. He had thought he had at least an hour to get his head together from college before dealing with Trix’s crap.

“I wasn’t in town this afternoon you narrow minded fanny. I was sailing the ocean wave. Captain Birdseye, I was, with a big white beard and everything: some old time fisherman in a small boat, ahoy out there with a couple of mates. The others are probably still fishing, but they’re not looking for fish any more; Birdseye took a dip and never came up for air.”

Moko felt a pang of guilt which was quickly swallowed by his curiosity. “...and the mermaids?” He asked.

“You’re interested now aren’t you smart arse, eager to hear my story now.”

“Not as eager as you are to tell it so stop playing games and get on with it.”

Trix paused long enough to give Moko a sour look, then brightened up again. “The only complaint I got about this one is that it isn’t a speed boat, but I don’t have time to muck about on this trip because I know that I have to get back to meet you, so I just find myself the heaviest bit of equipment that I can, secure it to myself, get up onto the roof of the boat, pull a moon at the crew and dive into the sea.

“There’s no land in sight so I know it’s going to be deep. The weight that I strapped to myself is doing all the work so I just admire the scenery as I sink. The light disappears quite quickly, but the size of the fish down here…Jesus! I don’t know if they’re whales, but they’re big. It’s a world of giants.

“Anyway, as I was saying, the light’s disappearing quickly and my brain’s running out of oxygen, so the natural light and my ability to see are going at the same time. I prefer sudden death, you know what I mean, when you’re alive then blam, you’re dead, but the borders are really blurred on this one; my skin’s cold, but as my lungs fill with water I can feel my insides go cold too – I’m still sort of aware of them. Then mermaids, hundreds of topless mermaids become visible; they all smile and swim towards me. They take me into their midst as I wait for death, the crossover, and BLAM I’m back in my own familiar body.”

Moko jumped. Trix had known that he was completely sucked in; he had his audience and he used it until he was satisfied, then he dumped it, but this one was a story that Moko had really listened to, and an experience that he envied.

Moko had often stood alone and marvelled at the sea, at its sheer enormity. The only thing bigger was the sky, but that was intangible. That’s why he surfed whenever possible: to conquer it, or at least to harness it. To imagine himself as Trix, passing slowly from this world while sinking through another, a strange little fish passing the giants that occupied it, a brief curiosity to the tiny brains that piloted them. And then the mermaids…

Such things could not exist surely. Were they the angels that Captain Birdseye believed would fetch him to his watery heaven? Or were they a reward in the dying moments to a loyal servant of the sea, simply a welcome? Were they conjured by brain, mind or by nature herself? The questions danced like flames in the hearth of his mind, but each one failed to warm him the way the answers would.

“So, judging by your hurry to come meet me, you want to go again tonight, right?” Asked Moko.

Trix looked at him, genuinely puzzled. “What else is there to do?”

“We could go play croquet,” suggested Moko. “Or go fly a kite.”

Who flies a kite when they can fly themselves a passenger from a Boeing 747?” Replied Trix. They both laughed and headed off to Moko’s house where there was a basement in which his parents left him undisturbed, ideal for their common purpose.

THEY WERE both fully fed and lying comfortably, drifting off, visualising their chosen images and awaiting the ride of their lives. They were invincible and looking to prove it once again. The world faded from around Moko, and he found himself in the sea, floating as a net would float, waiting as a net would wait. He tried not to think of Trix’s story, of the giants of the deep, as they would just distract him, but as he tried to banish these thoughts something entered his net. It was only as he closed around that he realised how big it was. He had a sudden panicked thought that he had netted a whale. How would he kill himself then, in the middle of the deep – a fish that is not a fish? He was sure that they could breath out of water as well, so even if he found land he wouldn’t be able to suffocate himself; he’d be trapped. He thought about the small brain that he’d be trapped in that piloted the massive bulk around the endless ocean that he was so in awe of, and awe turned to fear – a prison bigger than comprehension.

Reassurance emerged from the fear, gentling the panic; his catch was not one big mass. As his hold tightened, he realised that it was not one but many, many people together in one place. Panic receded, and he just closed in on one of them. The now familiar sensation of hijacking a human body comforted him, and as the body and occupant panicked, he relaxed and enjoyed the rush.

The senses dawned on him, and the suspense of his new temporary identity was slowly satisfied, but it was the return of his sight that he relied on to provide these answers clearly, and as that returned, suspense became excitement, excitement became panic, and panic became anguish, but not before death.