Shelby the Nervous Fish

© 2005 Familyman

As you know from the title of this book, Shelby was a nervous fish. When at school, he was worried about what he was going to do after school. When he was home, he was worried what would happen the next day at school. To be honest, Shelby found all of this worrying exhausting, but he didn’t know how to go about living any other way. So, each morning, he tried to put on his best smile and make it through another day.

One morning, Shelby woke up to find himself pressed up against the smooth scales of dozens of other goldfish. It seemed like he was swimming in fish, not water. A large goldfish bumped into Shelby.
“Oooff!”
“Sorry about that, young fry,” said the old fish. “There’s just not enough elbow room in here for a big old carp like me,” he added with a smile.

Shelby cleared his throat. “Excuse me, sir,” Shelby said, rather sheepishly. “Do you know what is going to happen next?”
“Next? What about right now, my boy? You should think about finding your own thimbleful of water with all of these fish about. We’ll know soon enough what we’re in for.”
The old fish’s answer did not make Shelby feel much better, but at least he now had someone to talk to who was going through the same thing. Shelby made sure to stick close to the old fish.

After a time, he did not know how long, for fish do not have wrists to hold watches, a panic broke out among the fish above them. In a flash, dozens of fish were frantically flailing their fins trying to squeeze past them.

“What’s happening?” yelped Shelby.
Before the old fish could reply, he was snared in a net and dragged away toward the surface.
“Be brave, young lad!” bellowed the old fish. “We’ll make it through this together!”
A thousand worried thoughts raced through Shelby’s head, and his tummy felt like it would explode with butterflies.
“How can he help me if I’m in here and he’s out there?” wondered Shelby.
This question no longer mattered when a giant pink hand closed around Shelby’s body.

“Help! I’m going to be eaten!” screamed Shelby, as the water slipped out of the hand holding him. Shelby’s mouth opened wide. He was gasping for water.
“Don’t worry,” yelled the old fish from somewhere below him.
“Where are you, I can’t see you,” pleaded Shelby.
“Down here in my own pond. You’ll be fine, just hold on a little longer!”

Shelby peeked out between two enormous fingers to see row after row of small fishbowls. Without warning, the hand unceremoniously plopped him into the bowl next to the old fish.
Shelby felt much better now that he was back in deliciously wet water.
“Finally, some space!” exclaimed the old fish, as he swam in a lazy circle.
“Why are we here?” asked Shelby
“Good question, but I don’t think we’re going to be lunch. There was an old legend about people swallowing us whole, but that was well before I was born. People don’t have a taste for us,” replied the old fish. “I hear they like to look at us. It calms them down.”

Shelby noticed a large group of young humans staring and pointing at him. All of a sudden a large white something was being thrown his way.
“They’re throwing stones at us!” he screamed, as he dove to the bottom of the bowl. The round rock broke the surface of the water, but instead of smashing into Shelby, it floated back to the top.
Another rock plopped into the old fish’s pond. He laughed. He was delighted. “It’s some sort of game! They’re not trying to hurt us.”

A little girl peered into the side of Shelby’s bowl, her face stretched wide by the curve of the glass. Shelby shrank back as far as he could. Then he saw her big smile that was missing a few teeth on the top and many on the bottom. Shelby, despite being scared, started to giggle. He couldn’t help it. Then he started to laugh—loudly. Not a mean laugh—but, truth be told, the girl’s sweet smile and missing teeth were just plain funny. And before you knew it, the old fish caught a glimpse of what was going on and was howling, too.

Shelby and the old fish were too busy laughing to notice that they were both poured into the same plastic bag. They settled down when they noticed the earth moving below them, as their blob of water swayed back and forth in the air. Shelby had never before seen so many new things — animals, trees, buildings, cars, trucks, buses, and people of all shapes, sizes, and colors — and was so amazed at what he was seeing that he forgot to be nervous. And he wasn’t thinking about what was coming next. He was simply living in the now, and he was happy.

Shelby and the old fish ended up in a well-kept tank belonging to the girl named Finny. Like everyone, Shelby had his good days and bad days, when he’d hide in the plants that looked like they were dancing in slow motion. But the good days far outweighed the bad, and Shelby, with help from his good friend the old fish (whose name was Harry) lived, as they say in the storybooks, happily ever after.

Under the Big Black Sun

© 2005 Familyman

He stood staring at an ad on the side of a telephone kiosk, but wasn’t studying the woman with the long black hair, blood red lips and her exposed, warm-looking, slightly curved belly. She was pleasing enough (and he hoped that her image would haunt him later). No, it was the words in yellow and black that puzzled him, and let the cigarette in his hand turn to ash uninterrupted. “Every body tells a story,” he repeated softly, words lost in the din of the street. His mind poured over the sentence like a penitent reciting the rosary. And he hoped to find similar solace after he unlocked its mystery.

The cigarette burned his fingers, leaving an ashy red mark on his nicotine-stained hand. The butt was casually released to the sidewalk. He didn’t wince--the pain didn’t reach him. He examined his hands in a manner that suggested that he had never seen them before, and maybe this was not too far from the truth. He noticed scars and calluses; the long, green dirt encrusted nails, the flower-like scar tissue at the center of his right hand (something that took place long before he became what he is). And he started to laugh in a manner that was at once wonderfully familiar and yet utterly alien to his current way of life: loud and from deep inside. He didn’t fight the feeling, but let it wash over him. The voices that always accompanied him (often withering in their assessment of his every movement and thought), which had been content to be mere background noise today, instantaneously joined him in uproarious and deafening delight, but he sensed that they did not mock him. They got the joke.

Those who lived told of their escape from death, while the bodies of the dead told how they died. Every body, living and dead, tells a story.

He had witnessed the end many times, in many vivid Boschian forms, but was always delightfully surprised to find everything restored each time it passed. Dismembered beings were once again whole. Demolished structures and scorched landscapes were reassembled and pristine. It was like the Egyptian deity who swallowed the sun and gave birth to/shat it out at the end of each passing night. The relentless cycle of life and death. He desperately wanted to meet the alchemist that pulled this off, just to convey his appreciation. But he sensed that this had been more real than any time previously and things apparently had not returned to normal. When the wind shifted in a particular way, he thought he could smell funeral pyres. The fear in the faces of the few people who passed him on his walks for cigarettes or a soda was thrillingly palpable. He felt a strange new communion with people behind the faces that had never quite come into focus before. Even back at the house, his worker Luis seemed more attentive to him than usual, always asking if he was okay or wanted to talk. He repeatedly assured Luis that he was fine, but suggested that he talk to the people he was encountering out in the street. They looked unhinged.

Some took notice of this rumpled, scarecrow of an old man, with his shock of salt-and-pepper hair standing on end (some might say he looked like an end-of-days Samuel Beckett), wildly laughing with tears streaming down his concave cheeks. If they paused downwind of him, they would wince at his effluvia, a pungent blend of week-old body odor, stale cigarettes, and pee. High school students shedding parochial school uniform ties and sweaters hooted in his face and tried to provoke him. Wealthy young mothers in body hugging gym clothes and running shoes tightened their grips on their curious kids, quickly dragging them past this intriguing sidewalk spectacle. Caravans of sirens wailed by with alarming regularity. Soldiers and army vehicles roamed the city. Nothing touched him. Most people passed by him without a second thought.

Well, one…"freak."

Eventually, the laughter abated, his affect assumed its usual muted qualities and his gray eyes went dead. Dusk was approaching and with it a dread of being out on the street with its menacing, shadowy creatures. It was a bad time of day for the voices in his head, which became more belligerent and cranky, like they were hypoglycemic. The safety of the house was foremost in his mind; everything else was blurred, as if he were hurtling along at some fantastic speed. Except he wasn’t. His gait was slow and uncertain, like he had arthritis or Parkinson’s (he suffered from neither), and one would assume that it all was simply a result of old age, but for the fact that he propelled himself forward in a similar manner at 17.

To mask the crescendoing cacophony inside his head, he fished out his trusty transistor radio. With nascent, rudimentary rock’n’roll, he drowned out the voices like a kid cranking up his stereo to blot out his parent’s fighting. Some of the others at the home used small headphones for a more direct injection of sound, but it made him feel claustrophobic. And he didn’t want to dull himself to the potential danger in the world around him.

He practically ran the last block to the home, the hairs on his neck standing on end--the lurking, amorphous figures were closing in on him. Once safely inside, he made his way to the smoking room for a few, not deriving any pleasure from the act, but sating his considerable craving for nicotine. The comfort of habit also relieved some of the anxiety of twilight. At dinner, he ate, but failed to discern any flavor in the food (which judging from the intake and expanding waistlines of his fellow residents, must be better than merely palatable). He knew that if he missed meals or decreased his food intake, it would invite the scrutiny of the staff, his worker, medical doctor, and psychiatrist. After a few decades of cycling in and out of institutions and locked hospital wards, he knew that you had to go along to get along--to appear to acquiesce, to be as unremarkable as possible.

He always ate with his back to the TV that was inevitably tuned to the 5:00 pm local news on Channel 7 and rarely spoke to his tablemates, a group of elderly gentlemen equally absorbed by their own demons to be good, or even adequate conversationalists. Staff served the meal and dispensed pills and potions. His came at the snack before bedtime--and for weeks, unbeknownst to anyone, he had been cheeking his blue pills with their teeny black lettering (it troubled him that he could not discern what it read) and saving them in mug buried in his wardrobe.

He lay in bed, fully clothed, waiting for sleep to blot out the day. His roommate spent the majority of the evening in the TV lounge, leaving him alone most nights, but for his voices and the occasional (and quite terrifying) visual hallucination. As he stared at the white stucco ceiling, something moved just on the edge of his peripheral vision. His voices deserted him. He focused on the pitch-black corner and was sure something was up there waiting for him. And it wasn’t going to be pretty. He broke out in a flop sweat and his leg and arm muscles failed to respond to the flight messages urgently being dispatched from his brain. His breathing became shallow and labored, and his racing pulse throbbed inside his head. The sinking feeling in his stomach made him feel like his insides were about to be sucked down a storm drain. This was going to be bad.

Something black the size of leatherback turtle scuttled into the light. Eight hairy, spindly legs deftly propelled the body, making it look like it simply glided across the ceiling. He closed his eyes, not wanting to take in this terrible vision, but it wanted to get a better look at him. Against his better judgement, he opened his eyes and was transfixed. A giant, red eye opened on the spider’s back and stared right at him. Whatever passed for the spider’s mouth started working, with the flaps around it jerking this way and that. A sonorous, WASPy voice emerged from the arachnid and, for an instant, he let himself hope that this was not to be a sinister encounter. “I thought we had gotten rid of you in the fire, you meshugener. But your time will come soon enough, my precious shlemiel.” The spider practically heaved the Yiddish words from his youth out of its body, as if they were the most distasteful fruit from a best-forgotten tree. Its eye never blinked. The door to his room opened, light poured in, but the spider held its ground.

One of the night staff had come to check on him.

Of course, he still could not move, not even turn his head to look at whoever entered his little slice of hell. Questions were asked, but he was unable to devote the time or brainpower to process the words. His jaw moved, but nothing came out. The spider eclipsed everything, so he did not notice the man do a double take as he passed by the open wardrobe.

The door shut and the spider’s monologue continued. “Your mother (have you forgotten her?) wanders the streets, turning tricks, humping and sucking any two-bit kid with some change. You call yourself a good, loving boy? You claim to love her? You never even look for her, save her from the life you condemned her to. She didn’t die all those years ago. You ran off to lose yourself, or find yourself, or chase after some slut…does it matter, you selfish shit? You forsook her, the woman who gave you life, who harbored you in her belly, suckled you at her breast, and fought the world to keep you safe. You miserable excuse for a man...” The spinnerets at the spider’s rear started to twitch. Clearly, they ached to do their job.

Tears slowly made their way down the crow’s feet on either side of his face.

Time was fluid. It was like an elaborate dream that seems to go on and on, but only takes up 20 seconds in real time. Or maybe hours had passed and he had blanked out, gone somewhere inside his head, safe from this thing hovering over him.

The door swung open again, sending in a shaft of harsh, florescent light. He saw elongated shadows of men move across the ceiling over the spider. Several unfamiliar faces came into his field of vision, but their uniforms were not: cops and paramedics. (His mind exploded: “Look up! The spider on the ceiling! Smash it! Shoot it! Kill it!”) Again, questions were asked, but they were sounds without meaning. His eye contact with the spider remained unbroken, even when a paramedic leaned over him and shined a pen light in his eyes.

Then an astoundingly strange and breathtaking thing happened. The ceiling and walls of his room began to melt away, revealing a clear, black-blue sky flecked with an infinite sweep of stars. His friend was visibly agitated, rapidly pacing back and forth on the remaining patches of stucco.

As the men started to leave the room, the spider dropped down on this chest and sunk its surprisingly sharp teeth into his flesh. He unleashed a scream full of such ferocity, naked fear and injury that it instantly connected to the men on the most primal level. They felt his pain.

His arms now responded to his brain and he frantically tore away at the spider. His filthy, uncut fingernails dug deep, bloody gashes where they circumvented his clothing and made contact with his skin. Blood emerged from his wounds, staining his clothes and bedding. The paramedics and cops surrounded him, held him down as best they could (people in this state are almost preternaturally strong). On the count of three, they picked him and transferred him to a gurney (with straps to restrain him), and rushed him out to the ambulance (or the “bus” in their parlance). He flailed away at the spider to no avail, it now clung to him--eight bony arms curled around his arms and chest--like a drowning man to a doomed rescuer. He was going down. On the way out the front door, several of his fellow residents tried not to notice what was going on, but stole abashed glances his way, nonetheless. Something to blab about tomorrow morning in the smoking lounge, no doubt. He desperately pleaded with the pudgy paramedic with the beard to wrest the spider off him, but all he got in response was a “hang in there, buddy.”

The ride to the hospital was a jump cut collage of sound and images, which distracted him from the warm, hairy horror at hand. The way the curly wires and tubing of medical equipment that streamed down the ambulance’s insides bounced wildly as the bus pitched and yawed, traversing the pockmarked surface of the city. The unseen supplies that clinked rattled and shifted with each sway and jolt to the vehicle. The blasé face of the paramedic as he filled out a form on a scratched-up metal clipboard.

When the doors burst open at the ambulance emergency room entrance, he grit his teeth and swallowed hard. He’d been through the business before and it wasn’t always pretty. Locked mental wards were a roll of the dice; it all depended on who was on duty and what treatment was on the menu. Harsh fluorescent day-for-night light cast a pale wash over everything. The EMT’s rolled him out of the bus, pausing to extend the front legs of the stretcher as they pulled him out, feet first, from the ambulance. He craned his neck up and looked over the spider to see what he immediately recognized as hundreds of hand lettered, missing persons fliers taped to the brown glazed bricks of the hospital’s exterior. Happy xeroxed faces smiled back from parties, picnics and pool decks. Birthmarks, tattoos, height, weight, skin, eye and hair color--the colors and patterns on the fragile shells that safeguard the heart and all that precious gray matter--were detailed in frantic handwriting. But he knew that there was no hope. They were all gone.

Moments of lucidity were not rare in his life, but his mind often would subvert these glimpses of reality, incorporating perverted versions of these insights into his system of delusions and paranoid fantasies. The sun warmed his mind for a few moments, only to be snuffed out by a seemingly endless gray downpour.

As he was wheeled down a long white corridor, the rectangular fluorescent lights above him passed like broken white lines of a highway. Thoughts crowded his mind, as he tried to cobble together fragments of memory from the last several days--if what he remembered and experienced was actually related to all this. His voices suggested otherwise: he was an insignificant-impotent-castrated-incontenent-worthless-shit-excuse-for-a-man-who-abandoned-his-mother-whore-bitch-Mary-of-blessed-virginity-Mary-Magdalen-(stream of consciousness thought not finished). Without any forewarning, the spider released its grip, sprung off the gurney, landing on the wall, and scuttled off in the opposite direction he was heading. In a matter of seconds, it was out of his (limited) field of vision. Its wickedly jubilant laughter echoed on the gray linoleum tiles. Turning his head back toward the ceiling, they passed a sign hanging down, which he wasn’t quite sure if he caught. It might have read ‘morgue.’ Then he realized that he had not been seen by an intake nurse--you can’t be admitted to anything, not even the ER, let alone the psych ward, without first seeing the triage intake nurse--and he was already deep inside the hospital.

As the scratched, stainless steel elevator doors closed, every cell in his wasting body willed that it go up. UP, I TELL YOU!, he exclaimed out loud. His body tensed and he strained heroically against the restraints to escape. But his inner ear said they were headed down--and quickly. The open panel of the service/escape hatch on the ceiling of the elevator revealed thick lengths of moving steel cable that trailed off into nothingness, pierced by the occasional thin line of light that indicated the floors rising above him. He could still hear the laughter of the spider, raining down on him from the blackness, which mutated now and then into the high-pitched and hair-raising cackle of a hyena.

The downward movement abruptly ended. Moans slipped in through the cracks of the elevator doors--then sobbing and screams filled the car, drowning him. The sounds of the undead in catacombs of cold stainless steel and tile, in limbo, awaiting their final transformation into dust. He was keenly aware that the CIA must be watching him now. The tiny camera in the corner of the ceiling relished capturing his every frightened twitch and grimace. They were getting quite a show out of him now, those spooks, he thought. Their plan was manifest to him now. He had witnessed too much of the event, knew too much of their plot to distract the people while they took control of the government. So, he would need to be quietly disposed of--courtesy of the arachnid’s poison. As he prepared to enter the realm of this necropolis, he lost control of his bowels and surprised himself by wondering, of all the things he could possibly think of, if the spooks peering into their monitors could detect this final, human act.