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There’s a god in my hometown’s aquarium.
Yes, I know that sounds crazy, but I’m serious. There’s a god in the aquarium. Right between the false cove with the turtle and where they keep the sharks. She’s dark, and vast, and her skin is dotted with glowing algae that look like stars. Lovely voice, too. I go out there a lot to sketch her.
I ask sometimes if she wants to leave. I’m sure she could if she really wanted to, the harbor is only a few yards from the building and it would be simple enough to see to it that all the staff here Know her. If she wanted anything, really, I don’t think I or anyone else could refuse her. She’s never answered.
I wonder if it’s her sister, that vast skeleton hung up through the center of the building I’ve always been told was supposed to belong to a whale. I wonder if the food the staff here feed her tastes good. I wonder what the words of the song she sings are, that one that follows me into my sleep.
I wonder what it’d take, for her to trust me the way I have allowed her into my heart. Would taking a dive into her tank be enough? I think about it sometimes, the way her hands would feel if I was to do that, bony and cold, just as easily able to rip me apart as to throw me back up onto the walkway. I would have an answer, at least.
But enough about me, how have you been? Would you come with me to the aquarium, next time you’re in town? I think you’d like it. Somebody else I know would, too.
She does so love hearing about what outsiders get up to!