It has been an hour since the umbrella left me where it found me: on the rocky cliff, overlooking the darkest sea I can imagine.
I decide not to go home. I don't want my children to fear me. Perhaps, though, if I were to walk into the house like this, they would first assume that my mechanical appearance was a costume to make them laugh. That sounds like something I would do. This is no trick, however. And my appearance is not the scariest thing about me. I need time to think about my next move.
Without emotion, I don't feel the same need to find the Time Dingus, so a dip in this deep gloomy pool is not necessary, but still somewhat inviting. What I once feared with everything in me, I am now curious about. Oh, sweet panic-eliminating apathy!
I could track down a ship, but that would really slow down the chapter. I step off the edge.
At first I inattentively gauge the water as cold, and the weight of the metal that courses through my body enables me to sink like an old iron girder. The water is deep and it takes some time to hit the bottom. I sink past the first layer of pretty fish and gentle whales. I sink past the layer of sharks, eels and sea snakes that want to gobble up the pretty and gentle. Tiny bubbles shoot up from me like I'm a madly effervescing Alka-Seltzer robot.
I am heading into the layer of gelatinous monsters.
On my way I wrestle with a bull shark, and I am swallowed and then spit out by a colossal squid, largest of the cephalopods. Largest of almost everything not cephalapod. It jets away to have its portrait painted sparring with a sperm whale.
My "Imagination of Fear" was wrong. The gelatinous layer that I found so terrifying doesn't seem to exist, but instead is filled with curious angler and lantern fish (which are much, much smaller than their pictures in books had me believe.) It is dark, but it seems that Mel Million Max had given me a bit of the ol' night vision. Handy. Bully for him.
Finally my feet hit the ground and I walk on the ocean floor as if walking down a neighbourhood sidewalk on the moon. But there is no Overview Effect. Nor is there even an Underview Effect.
I can make out rocky reefs, slithery creatures that have no interest in me, and a wrecked submarine on a ledge overlooking a great bottomless chasm. I assume it's bottomless, realizing that nothing on Earth is truly "bottomless" (perhaps topless). I make my way towards it. It takes ages. I assume it takes ages, realizing that "ages" is hardly a clear measurement of time.
The submarine is very old and very large. It looks as if it has been down here from a time before submarines were even invented, just waiting to show itself once they were so no one would think it strange and out of place. However, at some point in the wait it fell asleep and failed to wake up again.
When I get to the hatch, I knock. I actually knock. As if some large Lurch-type butler is waiting on the other side to greet me and offer a beverage. I'd probably have laughed at myself if I still had a sense of humour. It is no surprise then that no one should answer.
A sea cucumber at my feet turns itself inside out because it can.
I fiddle with the hatch wheel, realizing that the chances of opening the hatch while the submarine is submerged would only serve to flood the whole damn thing. The hatch wheel simply breaks off when I attempt to turn it. It would seem that the only thing holding it together is a memory of once being a hatch wheel.
I travel down the body of the sub until I reach another, an emergency escape hatch, perhaps. The same thing happens. Including the sea cucumber.
Suddenly I hear a knocking coming from inside, echoing through the water like mumbly hiccups. Perhaps Lurch isn't so ridiculous after all. I follow the sound to the back half and find a second aft escape hatch. The hatch wheel turns on its own. This would be terrifying if I felt such silly things. It opens and water rushes in, as I do I. It closes again as water rushes back out through one hell of a sump pump.
I lay in a foot of that draining water as a spindly figure quickly locks the hatch, only able to close it (with the weight of an ocean that wants in) with some kind of old steam-punk-ish hand crank machine with visibly rusty cogs that are more rust than cog. I get to my feet and the figure approaches in the darkness of the room. Though electric me has night vision, it doesn't allow me the details in this person's face, too much green shadow. I need a light.
The figure extends a hand and I take it. With bony fingers and soft old tissue paper skin, it pulls me through a doorway and loudly closes it. This room is dry. The hand shivers in mine, definitely feeling the cold of the icy water. He lights a lantern and gives me a once over, up and down.
We stop in a stare.
Through devises of self-discovery (and not ugly inflated narcissism) there will be many times and situations where I run into various versions of myself in my adventures, but this is perhaps the most disturbing version, and I am glad I cannot feel. There I am, standing in front of myself, but this me is half-starved. This me is old. Perhaps in my eighties, but it is hard to tell as often emaciation can showcase wrinkles and make one look older.
"Ha! I didn't think you'd ever make it!" he laughs and then coughs. I didn't say anything in return. He takes my hand (yay!) and leads me out of this space and through an open grate. Once through, he lets go of my hand (boo!) and he beckons me to follow. What else do I have to do? I follow. We crawl through a narrow vent and into another open space. "I'm glad you're here. I've been waiting a long time for you to come and kill me."
"Sorry? Kill you? I've never--" I stop. Does destroying the robot Mel Million Max count?
"Of course you haven't. You even save worms from being stepped on when you're walking in the rain. Doesn't matter. You're not you right now. You have to kill me! It's my purpose. It's the only reason I haven't just given in to him." He stutters through a toothless mouth. "More enjoyably, you have to kill him as well!"
He starts laughing. Oh my. Do I laugh like that?
We follow his lantern to an old wall-sized computer console, and duck down beside it. He removes a loose panel from its edge and crawls inside. There is more room in this creepy-crawlspace than one would guess. It becomes obvious to me that this is where he lives.
There are blankets and pillows in the corner, what looks like a makeshift chamber pot (luckily empty), various books and freeze-dried food wrappers. The ceiling is low and neither of us can stand up straight. This would explain, other than age, why his posture is so disappointing for me when I try to anticipate it in my future.
"Sorry, I can't just turn on the lights. He'd find me for sure, and I have successfully outrun him for many, many years. I don't plan on getting devoured now! I mean, as much as I'd like to take a really good look at you and remember what I used to look like with a little meat on my bones!" He smiles.
"Who is 'he'?" I ask.
"He is you. He is me. But he is not like either of us," he answers, pulling out a small metallic disk. He sinks to the floor like a bored child and sits on a cushion motioning for me to do the same.
"How long have you been on this submarine?" I ask.
"Submarine? This is not a submarine." He knocks the disk on the floor a few times and it opens like a locket. Inside there is a small screen. He presses a tiny button. Nothing happens. "Sorry...I've watched this too many times. She was my only friend!" he laughs (oh my) and knocks it on the floor again. A video starts up.
It is Clover.
"Sean. I found a way to help you. It has not been easy. I went back to the wreck of Mel Million Max's ship and found some of his equipment intact. I found some of him intact too, much to Aye's chagrin. I have managed to extract some of your DNA from his machines. Enough to cultivate emotion which can be extracted and grow in you until you are human again. I have taken out enough DNA to make a clone of you. He can explain what to do with this information and how to absorb it and start the process. I have wired the trans-dimensional umbrella to this smaller Arrow ship, and I will try to get it as close to where we dropped you off as possible while still leaving it hidden. I parked it in the mall parking lot over what I think should be your ocean, and I will put a homing beacon on it tuned to your frequency. Guess that's the plus of being mostly machine, huh? There may be an anomaly in trying to send something so large to another dimension. The year might be off, but hopefully not too much. I wish you well. I hear from Li Li each night as I sleep. You are lucky to be part of her story... it is a good one. As is Gryff's and Darwyn's from her perspective. Maybe you'll find those that write down their stories on your adventures! Love to you my friend."
I sit and take this in for a moment. I have many questions for Old Me, but have a feeling he will answer them before I can ask.
"The year might be off, huh?" he laughs (oh my). "Try forty."
"So why are there two of you – uh, me?" I ask.
"I got lonely waiting. A few years ago I thought I'd go mad if my only friend was the recording of a woman from another dimension. I extracted a bit more of you, er, me...to make another clone. But he came out too distorted and too young. Twenty maybe. That was fifteen years ago. We are hiding from a thirty-five-year-old version of you. He is angry and so sad. Oh, and he came out drunk. I'm not sure how that happened, but a decade and a half of never knowing what it is to be sober has driven him crazy. Really crazy.
"That reminds me...I should make sure he's not in this end of the ship. I purposefully set up here as far as I could from where he sleeps. Or rather, where he passes out. Wait. Be right back."
He leaves me there with plenty to think about.
If the enemy was a just a younger me, that wouldn't be so bad. I used to drink a lot more than I do now, but I wasn't that bad. Silly, wacky, flirty, hungry, short-sited, stupid (very, very stupid), and ignorant, but not dangerous. Well, maybe a tad angry the odd time when I was already feeling jealous, frustrated or backed into a corner before picking up that first pint-that-led-to-many. Drinking was an escape, but never medicine. I'm sure of it, but I could be wrong. Friends and family would be better to ask for a more accurate answer, if I had any desire to actually know the answer (I do not). I may have had a bigger problem then I thought at the time. It was an escape I perhaps made far too often. It's something I don't like to think about. Being forced to is anxiety inducing.
As I sit here in anxious reflection, I hear a tinny whisper. I look around in the dark, but can't make out anything specific with my night vision. I slide across the floor towards the sound and hit my head on a pipe. I follow it with my hands until I feel a small grate. The whispering is coming from within. The voice is familiar. The slurring voice is barely recognizable, but it is mine.
"I know you are there...open the hatch to make me think you finally escaped? Pah! Nope. Nope. Nope. I'm going to find you old man, and I'm really hungry."
This would have been startling (if I could feel startled) but it is hard to find yourself threatening when you know how ridiculously harmless you are, and how cowardly your core being is. It also takes a few moments to realize that this voice is coming down a vent to the entire ship and he/I doesn't really know where I am, or, as it would seem, that I am even here. Well it knows I am here, the older me, but – I can see how this is going to get complicated to write, and convoluted to read. Regardless, I am staying put until I get back. I know how to deal with me better than I do. (See?)
It also occurs to me that the voice through the vent has a certain listlessness to it. Like this is something whispered down the pipe daily, and although it is sincere, there is a level of boredom that is coming through louder than is probably intended. I recognize that I would normally chuckle at this. I'm such a knucklehead.
Old me comes back in with the lantern.
"So, this is the plan. The control panel in the room above us has been programmed to have you absorb me, the rest of the emotions Clover could extract, and even you-know-who if he should intervene. And he will. Once I fire up the power on that equipment, he will be here in no time. We have the element of surprise though, as he won't be expecting more that one of me. He ate the others long ago."
"Sorry – what? Others?"
"Uh. Yeah. Uh. This is embarrassing. I may have made a few more clones. Don't worry though! There is still enough in there to get the process started. Any lost emotions, or ones that simply didn't get downloaded in the first place, will cultivate in you. Emotions are like mould spores. They spread and grow until they fill you up. Then you will be human again!"
"So he...I ate the others?" I ask.
"Um. Yeah." He scuttles across the floor and picks up a skull from beside his pillow. "This was one. Horny fella. Kept trying to have sex with me. I miss him though, he sang everything he said like he was in some randy opera.
"There was another. He just cried all the time. Was a bit much. He was all your sadness and self-hate. As I said though, these parts will grow back in you once the process has started," he said.
"I'm not sure I want either of those parts back," I state coldly.
"Bah. Stop that. You are human. Sadness, self-hate and a wacky libido are part of the experience. They are gifted on you when you first spark into life."
Old me is trying hard to be reassuring by quickly glossing over the fact that brutal murder and disgusting acts of cannibalism had occurred each time I ask about these clones. Perhaps old me is just trying to get it out of his mind as well; he still has emotion, and he has lived through this nightmare. Poor fella.
The plan is pretty loosey-goosey, but there are not a lot of other options. If we work quickly enough, we can have everything ready to go and then get the jump on crazy me. Hopefully, between the two of us, we can fight him off.
"Guess there's no time like the present. I've waited so long for this," old me smiles. I look weird with no teeth.
"One more thing. And it's an important thing. Once I become human, how will I get out of here? I won't be able to breathe underwater, and as you know too well; I'll be much too terrified to go out there anyway. Oceans are nightmare stuff."
"You are not going to be human all at once. You'll have time get back to land and then some. When you are out there, try not to think about anything. Going a bit zen will slow down the process. If you suddenly start feeling frightened, you will start needing oxygen, so don't be in any rush to feel. Now....ready?"
And just like that we head out of our hiding place and into the dark control room. He has already plugged Clover's metallic disk into a slot in the console, and he rushes over and puts his hand on a lever. He looks at me and smiles. "One, two, three," and he pulls the lever, powering up the entire room. Perhaps the entire ship. The disk starts to whir. Lights start to blink.
He is violently knocked to the floor.
Whether by coincidence, or as if he intuitively knows what other him/old me is up to, crazy me had been waiting. However, he is waiting for frail old me...not bionic-feels-no-pain me.
He jumps on old me and bites into the old, thin flesh of old me's neck. I see my blood quickly pool and then pour from the wound. Crazy me still hasn't seen me-me. I grab me by the neck and pull me off of me. Yes, it's all about me here, but enough me's; time to use other pronouns to make this clearer. I'll use "Oldy" and "Maniac" for a bit.
There is shock on Maniac's face and he looks at me dazed. I see Oldy's blood on his chin, and my eyes like I've never seen them in the mirror. He throws himself to the floor and crawls away in a panic. Cowering in the corner he stares at me, examining. Oldy winces and tears a strip off of his t-shirt, wraps his neck and slides across the floor behind me.
"What is this? You didn't make another. I'd have known!" Maniac growls, his voice crackling. I've never heard myself like that. Or, sadly, maybe I have.
"Then you know exactly what is happening. It's time for me to go home. It's time for you to go away forever. Tucked so deeply into his psyche that you never come out again. You are not who he is. You never have been," Oldy answers, gasping.
Maniac's eyes start to well up, but the tears start to boil like drops of water hitting a hot skillet. His regularly small eyes became saucers. He rises from his crouch and his hands start to shake. He is filled with such anger. Such rage.
I have never seen myself like this; truly terrifying. However, it also isn't foreign to me.
I have (or had before becoming a robot) a temper. Though I would never raise a hand to another living thing, I knew, deep down, that I could look like this. Well, perhaps not anywhere near to this degree, but still frightening. Especially to those smaller than me. My children. It occurs to me that this is what I must look like to them when I show my temper. As much as I see myself as being "ridiculously harmless, and cowardly to the core" like Candle Lid or Potto, I am capable of this rage, this frustration, this extreme disappointment in myself and this reaction to being completely and overwhelmingly overwhelmed by the overwhelmedness of everything.
For the first time I can see how terrifying I can be through the eyes of those I love the most, and I run. I grab Oldy by the pant leg, sliding him across the floor into the next room, slamming the hatch door and locking it behind us.
Oldy isn't looking so hot. He is even more pale than before. It occurs to me that he isn't getting back up. The slick of blood leading back to the door, and no doubt to where he was attacked has drained him. The t-shirt scrap isn't helping keep it all in. I can hear Maniac smashing things in the other room. Smashing the console that will give me emotion. I get down and rest Oldy's head on my lap, and put my fingers through what hair he has left. I know I would find that comforting. He blinks slowly, finding it difficult to focus.
"It seems the plan failed. I'm pretty sure he destroyed the console. And now you...you are not going to make it, are you? And I would rather not have my emotions rebooted from a monster," I tell him.
"That's okay," he whispers, fading further with each laboured breath. "Console doesn't do anything anyway. My plan went exactly as planned. I can see it in your eyes: Shame."
I feel shame. I feel.
"Sorry it couldn't have been love that brought you back, but love isn't as jarring. You needed to be jarred," he wheezes.
I am capable of being a monster. I have anger issues. I may not physically hurt the people I love, but I have definitely frightened them, and that is hurting the people I love regardless. And it is breaking my heart. It is fucking breaking my fucking heart.
"This was a gamble. It all depended on whether or not you had even a speck of humanity in you. The seed that would be your cure. Clover left another message, for me only, detailing the plan. She said there were two codes you could have entered into Mel Million Max's ship computer. One would have guaranteed total annihilation. The other would just blow up a portion of the ship, giving him a chance for survival. Her theory was that without you even realizing it, that speck of humanity still deep within you chose the second code.
"You just needed that seed to get a little fertilizer, and what better fertilizer than shit? And what better shit than seeing just how shitty you can be?" he smiled weakly.
"You're already looking a little less silver. I'm sure it will also help greatly to see yourself d-----." And he dies. I die. I hold the dead body of me as I try to break down the door to get to me. (I went back to limited pronouns for effect. To show how overwhelmingly ridiculous this situation is.)
When you can only feel one emotion, that emotion can be huge.
It is shame that guides me to the door.
It is shame that has me open it.
It is shame that is sick of seeing myself like this.
It is shame that wants it to end.
It is shame that has me grab crazy me and it is shame that holds crazy me tight. Tighter than I've ever held onto anything.
I might as well use this bionic strength while I still have it. I hug me. The maniac squirms. He screams with anger. He rips at my flesh; it will heal. He bites my shoulder; it will heal. I squeeze tighter.
Crazy me stops fighting. He sees it now. He starts crying. He has done so many really, really bad things. It is his turn to feel shame. And it hits him like a stroke.
I leave him/me twitching on the floor. It is time for me/me to leave.
"When you go...don't close the hatch behind you. Please," he whimpers, his voice completely sober.
When I leave, the hatch stays open. I have grabbed Clover's disk. Even if it didn't work, it would be nice to have a reminder. The ship fills up with water. I know this isn't the last time I'll see my anger, but for now, shame wants me, needs me to leave it behind to drown.
Before I can jump off the outer hull, the cold water now surrounding me shifts the weight inside the ship and causes it to roll over and slowly toss and turn. It falls further down into a chasm onto another ledge. I hold on until it stops, but realize I am now completely turned around. I can't tell which way to go. I am lost in the dark.
I am still able to get around under the waves without breathing, but I am not sure how long this will last. Though feeling has begun again, fear still hasn't shown its ugly but protective head. The pressure of the depths is giving me a tiny headache, a headache I am sure will get worse the more I feel, and the more I feel it. I am glad of it. The worse the headache gets, the faster I need to move to get to shore; it serves as a warning system.
I am still too heavy to swim, so I must walk along the ocean floor and climb any cliffs and reefs I come across. It becomes very clear to me I am not heading in the right direction for a quick and easy escape to the dry world. Perhaps I can find a large fish or whale that will lift me up and carry me home, and then I can really get down to work on feeling.
I walk for what is possibly hours, trying to clear my mind from any thought. I climb up and down more chasms. Through an encyclopaedia of familiar looking sea creatures and unfamiliar nightmares. None of them are either big enough or tame enough for me to hitch a ride on.
I soldier on. Along the way I come across a great wall. I start climbing, hopefully I have circled around to the cliff that would bring me back up to where I started.
I climb some more. Again, hours pass. I assume hours pass. My headache is getting worse, a result of another feeling coming on: worry. I stop to rest for a moment on a rock shelf. My ability to see in the dark is slowly fading. I could start breathing at any moment, and if that happens, I will drown quickly.
In the dark, I see something large and white in the distance getting even larger and whiter as it closes in on me. It only takes seconds to get an idea of the scale of this thing, and it is huge. American football field huge.
Soon the abnormally gigantic face of a blob fish, stops and stares at me with a disproportionately small eye from less than twenty meters away. I stare back because there is nothing else for me to do in such a situation. Time to think.
"Hello big thing. You're a looker. Fancy giving me a lift?" I finally say trying to appear full of feeling and friendly. It simply sucks water into its ridiculously hideous mouth, taking me with it.
Down the throat of the fish I reluctantly and pointlessly swim backwards. At that very moment, the jarring feeling of dread accompanies shame and worry. That is one too many feeling and I become certain I need to take a breath. Good news for my humanity, bad news for my longevity.
However, breathing might be a moot point, as I am being swallowed by a colossal blob (of a) fish and would likely not survive it.
If you have not seen a blob fish before, two things are important to know, regarding its appearance. First, and most important at this moment, is that they are normally closer to the thirty-centimetre mark, not American football field-sized, or five stories in (underwater) height. The second thing is that I put "underwater" in brackets in the last sentence because this is a creature that is somewhat gelatinous and its height would be far less on land.
Its general inability to properly swim through the water, and not merely hover above the bottom eating, means that it has low muscle mass. So out of water it tends to flatten out a bit into what looks like a cartoonish, semi-transparent, pale, bald, old scowling fat man who is melting. Or perhaps like a dropped custard having a bad day. This look has also garnered it the title of the "ugliest animal" on many lists of ugliest animals because (oddly) some people like to make such lists.
Not only was the size of this blob fish unusual, but the elevated depth, and the location of its habitat are both highly suspect.
As the inside of the fish widens, I go from sliding down backwards to tumbling head over ass trying not to take a deep breath of water. As the dread, worry and shame grows, this becomes more difficult, and my electronic night vision disappears completely. I can stand it no longer. I breathe in deep. But water does not fill my lungs, oxygen does. I breath deep a second time. I breath deep again. I am lying on my back in a large dripping cavern inside the belly of the beast.
And I am not alone. I hear voices and see a faint light in the distance.
After catching my breath and letting my eyes adjust, I can see I am surrounded by great walls of jelly, and I am standing up to my shins in slimy, stinking belly bile.
I wander toward the light and see a small cabin made from shipwreck parts and the bones of lost deckhands. On the makeshift porch of the cabin, and sitting on makeshift chairs around a makeshift lantern burning with the odour of kerosene is a man in a long linen tunic with a dark beard next to a fantastically dressed and decorated Georgian-era soldier with a tricorn hat and keenly waxed and twirled moustache.
And a little wooden boy sits next to him.
"I did not threaten the boy, I merely suggested that if he were too lazy to fetch firewood from the wreck, then perhaps he might make a reasonable substitution. It's really only a matter of time," says the gentleman in the tricorn to the man in the tunic.
"He is not your servant, Baron. You are the only one being lazy. The boy doesn't even feel the chill and will not need the fire," Tunic guy replies.
"Both of you can go to hell!" says the timber tyke with a sharp and splintered tongue.
"You will not speak with such blasphemous words, lest the Father strike you down, you wicked boy!" scolds tunic guy.
"I'm made of wood, yet you're the one with the stick up his ass," says the boy. Tunic guy is visibly angered but tricorn man laughs heartily.
"Okay. Burn the little shit," Tunic barks.
"Well done, boy!" Tricorn beams.
I feel honoured. I am in the belly of a great underwater beastie, and have joined other characters who have done the same. It hadn't really occurred to me how many characters, against all logic and science, had ended up trapped alive inside a sea creature to learn some valuable life lesson or another. There may even be more.
And perhaps odder still, two of these characters were famous liars, the third one punished for deity disobedience, and I can only feel shame and a host of other negative feelings. They all look up at me at the same time.
"Well it's about time," says Baron Munchausen. "The lad made you a chair. Go get that would you, lad?"
"I made the fucking thing. You go get it old man," snorts Pinocchio through sawdust.
"Language!" scolds Jonah, fetching the fucking thing.
I sit under the light of the kerosene lantern. We sit around an old iron pot. Pinocchio heads off and returns a few noisy moments later with some bits of wood from the wreck behind the cabin. He throws it in the pot and Jonah starts to rub sticks together to make a fire. The Baron hands him an old flint, and the wood starts burning. I feel warmth. I feel.
"You are still looking a tad silver," notes the Baron.
"How do you know me?" I ask.
"We're fictional characters, good sir. We live inside your head. We are what you picture when you picture being inside a big fish. We're here to comfort you. You remember comfort?"
I don't have to think for very long to have Kim and LiLi and Gryff and Darwyn pop into my head. They usually bring me comfort, but not this time. Too much shame. Too much worry. Too much fear that I will never see them again. Instead of comfort, a new emotion which seems to be the child of those other negative feelings turns on like light switch: I feel longing.
For the first time since before Mel Million Max's curse, I miss them.
"You should have a good cry," Pinocchio suggests.
"Pushaw! Man up, sir. Crying is for women and non-wooden children," the Baron rebuts.
"Fuck you!" Pinocchio sputters.
"God brings people comfort," Jonah says with hope while scowling at Pinocchio.
"That's true," the others chime in together.
"Are you Christian?" Jonah asks sheepishly.
"Uh, no. Sorry," I mumble sheepishly. Jonah sighs heavily and looks a bit sulky.
"Maybe that's the problem," he mutters, which causes me to feel a bit snarky.
"Yes, well it's a well-known fact that Christians never shed tears," I offer sarcastically.
"So, who do you seek for comfort then, smart mouth?" he sneers.
"The people I love. Music. Trees. Food. Conversation. Um... pillows and comforters...Ativan on rare occasion..."
"The arms of few harem girls..." Munchausen pipes in as if lost in thought.
"Wicked, wicked man," Jonah says shaking his head at the Baron.
"Oh, lighten up Joni," the Baron sighs.
All goes awkwardly silent for a few moments. The fire crackles and spits out the odd tiny ember. Pinocchio flinches each time.
"So, have you guys ever tried to steer this thing?" I ask.
"The fish?" gasps Jonah.
"Yes, the fish," I answer matter-of-fact.
"How on earth do you steer a fish?"
"I don't know. Power of suggestion?"
"I'm not sure the fish is smart enough, nor does it understand 'human'," Pinocchio adds.
"Perhaps a little brain rewiring," I suggest.
"Yes! That could work. I did just such a thing when I was inside a mighty bear!" the Baron makes up.
"You shouldn't have sexual relations with bears. It's dangerous. All those teeth," Pinocchio dryly muses. I like him.
Munchausen ignores the comment, lost in thousands of adventures in his head. I like him too. I know the feeling. (Of having a head full of adventures, not of making love to a grizzly.)
Jonah I'm not so big on yet. Yet. Bit preachy. I will, however, give him a chance no matter how much we differ.
"Well, let's have a look. Which way to the brain?" I ask.
We all decide to take a few hours in front of the fire to warm up. I hear tales from each. I'm not sure which are true, but Pinocchio's nose only grew a wee bit while he talked. I'm guessing all Munchausen's tales are all taller than trees, and Jonah's stories are surprisingly interesting when they don't feel like they are feeding on my shame.
Once we are sufficiently warmed up, we are on our way to find the brain of a blob fish.
Pinocchio makes some sandwiches for the trip, but no one will want to eat them because they are soggy.
It doesn't take long to find the brain anyway, and soon I find that the parts of me that are still robotic are still able to scan the brain for the best place to wire myself in. I'm not sure this will work, but my companions are actually quite supportive. I wire myself in to a synapse in the frontal lobe, crossing my fingers.
Something miraculous and scientifically questionable happens. Everything shuts off around me like I'm shutting down a computer. The lads are not with me anymore; instead I feel as though they are in my guts, walking around in me like grumpy but harmless cartoon parasites. All I see is the murky dark of the ocean surrounding me.
I am seeing through the eyes of our blob fish. I hadn't named him up until now. I will call him Lil' Thunderbolt for no reason other than that's what has just popped into my head and it is a ridiculous name for an enormous blob fish. I like ridiculous. I LOVE ridiculous.
Direction suddenly seems so clear, like a basic instinct based on water temperature and current and smell. How bizarre to smell under water! I can't feel limbs, only disproportionately small fins flittering like drunk hummingbirds on my sides. I test them out. With the tail I seem to be able to steer! Success!
BUT something suddenly goes terribly wrong. I not only feel the physicality of being the fish, but its sorrow. The loneliness of not only being in the vastness of a friendless ocean, but of being something considered the ugliest in the vastness of a friendless ocean. I am sinking. I don't know how to push on.
I feel my blobbiness hang off my bones, my jowls and my love-handles meeting and wrapping me in heaviness. It immediately reminds me of standing in front of my mirror wondering where the energy-filled skinny kid I once was went. And how he became bloated and lazy and tired and achy and like a gelatinous Tin Man in desperate need of an oil can and a salad.
Perhaps I don't want to be saved. Perhaps I don't want to be seen. Perhaps instead of finding land, I will just let myself sink lower and lower and lower into the dark where even the lantern of the angler fish can't find me.
I sink lower and lower, unaware of my human body inside this big guy. The more I feel, the more human I become, which means the wires I'm using to attach myself to its brain may disintegrate and we will have lost our chance of rescue.
I need motivation. I need my dodo. I need to think about Kim smiling at me. I need to think about LiLi teaching me something, Gryff telling me something wonderful excitedly, and Darwyn giggling at everything and making me laugh. But depression, as I have said, doesn't always work this way.
When I picture them, they are so incredible to me that I feel worthless in comparison. I feel that a blob fish like me doesn't deserve them.
As I sink, I bump into something hard and heavy. The bioluminescence of a firefly squid lights my way for a moment and I see a large shiny fishing hook hanging off a gigantic muddy rope. I poop unexpectedly. How strange to be a non-human animal.
I also bite down on the hook.
It doesn't matter what avid fishermen say on the subject; it stings. I work through it as fish instinct, the same which made me poop, takes over and I freak the hell out. This is good, as it forces me to pull on the line and inform the owners of the hook that I am snared.
I am no longer sinking. I am no longer in need of piloting Lil' Thunderbolt, and I desperately want free of his brain. My companions in the fish must sense this for they are most definitely aware that the fish is suddenly moving a lot faster than a fish like this should be able to swim. I am glad of this, as the sadness is almost impossible to escape on my own. All goes black for a few seconds and when I wake up I'm on my back.
"Someone unplug me?" I gasp-ask.
"Nope. The cord just sort of fell off. With a chunk of your head I might add," says Pinocchio.
To my side I spot a piece of silver, a piece of the mechanization I once was. The sadness, loneliness and low self-worth of the poor blob fish is making me almost entirely human again, and now the feeling of compassion is flowing through me and I realize that I have condemned this poor beast to death. While in the brain of the fish I felt an overwhelming "why bother" sickness take me over as I chomped down on that hook, but now that I am on the outside (of the inside) I can't let any harm come to this creature.
"He's hooked!" I say, jumping up.
"What? How big of a hook would you need to catch a fish this big?" asks Jonah.
"How big of a ship could pull it up without sinking?" adds Pinocchio.
"Well, I once owned a ship so big and mighty that the entire planet of Neptune once borrowed it for vacation sailing..." the Baron makes up.
This all makes it worse of course, for now I am picturing not only the death of the fish, but the death of the fishermen as well, all for my own needs. This is a disaster. I need help, but will I be able to convince my new friends to save their captor, perhaps at the expense of their freedom?
"We need to unhook Lil' Thunderbolt. It may mean we are trapped in here forever, but if it saves lives..." I say. No one questions the fish's new name. Imaginary people can be so accepting if you imagine them to be.
"This is not merely a fish. This is a vessel sent by God to set me straight...and now to teach me a lesson in compassion and sacrifice. Perhaps to set you straight?" Jonah asks. I roll my eyes a bit, but at least he's on board.
"This fish saved my life. I no doubt would have drowned had he not swallowed me, even if I can hold my breath for the better part of a year. The experience once gave me the ability to talk to ducks!" the Baron says. I roll my eyes a bit, but at least he's on board.
Pinocchio shrugs a "whatever" and pretends to smoke a soggy cigarette. I snicker. He's on board.
We head back to our original spot, where the swallowed shipwreck sat. We follow the Baron onto the deck and down into the galley where three old deep-sea diving suits are draped over a nice chaise lounge. Jonah and the Baron start to put theirs on and Pinocchio pulls one over to me dragging the heavy boots behind.
"I don't need one. Not until I'm a real little boy." Pinocchio informs. I know that feeling all too well, and at this particular moment I miss it. The suits smell like expired fish expiring further in a sauna heated by burning mildew.
We walk out of the ship with helmets under arms like the most oddly cast biopic film about astronauts ever made. As we wander off to find the great mouth of the fish, we discuss the plan. Or rather the lack of plan.
"We don't have an oxygen pump or long hoses so the diving suits are more to keep us from choking on any water inhaled by the beast. We will have to do a lot of holding our breaths so we must work quickly," I say. "We can try to get the hook out, but if we fail one of us will have to shimmy out along the hook outside the fish's mouth and cut through the rope. Who has a sword?"
"I don't have a sword," says Jonah.
"I don't have a sword," says Pinocchio
"I don't have a sword," says Munchausen as he drops the sword he doesn't have.
I pick up the sword with a sigh; the Baron blushes.
We march up the throat and along the tongue as the water we wade through gets deeper. The fish takes a gulp and it's all we can do to get our helmets on in time for the wave. I grab the puppet before he can get washed back down. Once the water is swallowed, we open the small circular windows in our helmets and breath as water flows back out past our knees.
At the mighty frowning mouth of poor Lil' Thunderbolt, I see the barbed spear of the giant hook curved and piercing upward like a thick iron tooth. I wade through a puddle of blood to get to it. To avoid going outside the fish, the barb needs to be sawed off, but I only have a flimsy gentleman's sword. It's a sword that would look very nice, hanging ornamentally above the fireplace in the lounge of a Bavarian ski lodge, but not one you'd want to use to slay a dragon. Or even an iguana.
We all close the hatches on our helmets as the fish gulps in more water, I hang on to the great hook. Munchausen holds on to a tooth. Jonah holds onto him. Pinocchio holds on to him. Once the mouth is closed, we open our helmets up again and breathe in deep the sour fish breath.
Jonah holds up a small splintered piece of wood sadly. I see the shape of a wee hand on the end. Middle finger extended.
"I tried to grab him," he mumbles in grief.
Munchausen is a liar, but he is a proud man. He is a brave man. And he is an emotional man. He gets very angry at this.
"Well then. If we are to save the fucker, we'll simply have to go out and cut the rope on that hook!" he fumes. "Excuse my language, good sirs," he adds with dignity.
"Don't worry, lad. I used to be the blue-ribbon swimming champion of the moon. No easy feat. Very dry," he winks as he closes his helmet again and grabs the sword from me. Off he goes, prying the fish's mouth open and slipping out into the nothingness of the heavy ocean. When the fish opens his mouth again, Munchausen is simply...gone.
It is now just Jonah and myself as a mighty thrust of the fish's weight topples us over. I get up immediately, thoughts swirling around in my ridiculous brain as I try, desperately, to find a solution in my thoughts amongst the circuses and tropical birds that usually live there.
Jonah doesn't get up. He prays while on his knees. His lips move quickly as whispers in a language I don't understand flow like music from his maw. This actually does give me some kind of strange comfort, even if for reasons unintended.
His body starts to glow. He looks up at me with great surprise, and a smile as wide as Lil' Thunderbolt's frown takes over his face. He laughs.
"I have proven myself to Him! He forgives my disobedience and doubt! My sentence inside this beast is over!" he beams. He then looks about at my situation and frowns. He shrugs and offers me a look of "Oh. Um. Sorry about your luck," and he disappears in a holy ray of light. I presume. I can't see it. I don't believe in that sort of thing. He does and that's all that matters.
I am now alone, and a second thrust flattens me again. The fish is being reeled in. Now all I can do is wait. And fear what force may be waiting that could catch such a fish, and could own and operate such a hook. And I apologize with everything in me to my fish saviour.
The apology is no sooner out of my mouth when the fish's mouth gapes open, now out of the water and trying desperately to breathe. With each gasp I see the night sky. I see a starry blanket above. We have been reeled up and are hanging, head up, off the side of a great ship. I take off the old helmet and climb out of my diving suit. I climb teeth to get to the mouth and climb out between gapes.
Looking about I am amazed. This is not just a ship. It is what can best be described as a floating city.
There are old buildings and lanterns lit as far as the eye can see. I can hear sea birds screeching at each other over lost French fries and laughter, shouts, and sad concertina music. The railing, made from wrought iron and thick and ancient rope, stretches out of view from side to side and I can smell rich bergamot and comforting fried and battered food.
My poor, lovely blob fish hangs from the giant hook like a half-filled water balloon at the end of an old wooden wharf that reaches out from vast ship like a mammoth walking plank on a pirate ship made for giants.
I am spotted by two of the fishermen operating a huge steam-powered motor attached to the fishing reel. I recognize them immediately. It is Failsafe and Candle Lid, and they don't look surprised to see me.
"Get out of the damn fish!" hollers Failsafe.
"Yes! Out, out, out!" adds Candle Lid. "Before the poor thing drowns on air!"
This makes me very happy. This beautiful fish will live on.
Over the next half hour, Failsafe and Candle Lid go to work on getting the hook out of the fish by lowering it back into the water and jumping in with it. Candle Lid holds onto the top of its head and whispered instructions to it. Failsafe swims into its mouth and removes the barb. Together they have the fish wriggle its way off the hook and free itself.
Once both are back on the ship, the fish rears its heavy, gelatinous head out of the water as if to say thanks to them. It looks like a huge vanilla pudding, floating to the top of a glass of motor oil. Candle Lid and Failsafe lean over the rail and pat the fish and Candle Lid continues to whisper to it.
They somehow made this impossible task, a task I couldn't wrap my brain around, look easy. I am both relieved and bothered by my inability to have saved the fish myself. My self-confidence is trying to hold on, but is slipping.
"Your self-confidence is trying to hold on, but slipping?" Candle Lid asks me.
"Yes," I mumble.
"Yeah. Lil' Thunderbolt told me. When you hooked yer brain up to his. He gave up some of his sadness to you...to help you be fully human again. Apparently, he took something from you by accident, too. He got some confidence from you. No wonder you're feeling a bit low," he smiles.
"It'll come back, so don't be a big baby about it," Failsafe barks.
I only see the fish for one last moment before it dips back down beneath the waves. It pops its mighty face out of the water a short distance from where it was moments ago.
It opens its mouth and Baron Munchausen, Jonah, and Pinocchio stand behind a row of teeth waving a goodbye. The Baron blows kisses, Jonah wags a finger disapprovingly with a smirk, and Pinocchio smiles coyly, shaking his head and gesturing lewdly again with his middle finger. They are back where they are supposed to be, in that moment of each of their stories where they are held captive by a mighty sea creature, forever more.
Lil' Thunderbolt closes his great mouth, but before he sinks back down, I whisper a soft "thank-you", which is carried by the cold sea breeze and swept around the great beast as it uncharacteristically smiles and winks at me before disappearing forever.
"Now," Candle Lid says, draping a warm blanket over my shivering shoulders. "How do you feel? Human again, I trust?"
I do. I feel very human. I feel shame and sadness. I feel helplessness and fear. I feel joy and I feel selfish. I feel empathy and I feel anger and confusion and the ebb and flow of regret. I miss my children. I miss my wife. I miss everyone I have ever met and everyone I ever would meet ever.
"Good," he smiles. "Let's get that dodo back, shall we?"