At Home, Adrift

Daniel stepped into the main hall of the aquarium, and switched on his flashlight.  He looked around, taking in the blue glow of the fish tanks and the steady hum of the machinery.  Adjusting his tag, he started his patrol of the building.

Night at the aquarium was his favorite time.  In the deep quiet, away from the constant pressures of the world, Daniel felt at ease.  The fish in the tanks were soothing.  They had no responsibilities, no worries.  They floated, serene and calm, surrounded by blue water.

He wished he could be more like them.  The idea of living in the ocean was nonsense, but the idea of being totally free, of owing nothing to anyone else in the world, was wonderful.  Daniel watched a clownfish swim aimlessly around, not even aware of his presence, and tried to imagine living, so distanced from the world.

Sometimes, looking in one of the tanks, he would see his reflection warped and distorted in the glass.  A pink blur was his face; another, darker mass was his hair.  It almost seemed to him, sometimes, that he wasn't looking at a reflection of himself - instead, there was another version of him within the tank, swimming in the water, looking out.   This him, this pseudo-Daniel in the water, seemed to look at him scornfully.  It would grin at him, silently questioning what he was doing, why he was still married to Molly, why he still worked for an destructive bully like Mr. Allans.  Why are you still trapped here? it would ask.  Why don't you get away?

*   * *

The aquarium was a large building that rested on one edge of town.  It had been founded many years before Daniel was born.  Outside, it was dirty gray stone, ugly to look at.  Inside, however, its high, sloping ceilings and pillars were stunning.

Daniel was a night guard, which meant he was supposed to patrol the empty buildings.  Instead, he spent the nights gazing at the fish in the tanks.  He liked all of the fish in the aquarium, but he especially liked the angelfish.  He could spend hours watching it swim in its tank.  The fish was a pale cream, with black stripes running vertically down its body, and a banana-yellow tail.  It was petite and dainty, one of the smallest fish in the aquarium.  There was only one in the tank - Daniel's boss had decided that angelfish weren't popular enough to warrant more than one animal.  To Daniel, however, that made the one fish more special.  It was alone, tied down to nothing.

He stopped at the angelfish's tank for a while, watching it swim.  On one trip past his face, the fish turned slightly, and seemed to look directly at him, eyes black and empty.  Daniel pressed his hand lightly on the tank's glass.  As the fish drifted past his palm, he felt a sharp ache in his chest, like he had suddenly inhaled cold air.  The fish knew him, Daniel realized suddenly.  It knew his unhappiness, his anger.  It was the pseudo-Daniel in the water, only it wasn't a reflection in glass, it was real.

"What should I do?" Daniel asked it.  There was no response, and the silence flipped a switch in his brain.  What was he doing?  The fish didn't know anything about him.  Daniel shook his head, sharply, and pulled his hand away from the glass.  

"You're a fish," he said to it.  It still didn't say anything, but as Daniel watched, it turned slowly and swam back towards the glass pane that separated their worlds.  Daniel stared at it, and for a second, he thought it looked betrayed.  He had let it down, he hadn't believed in it.

"Believe in what?" Daniel muttered, half to himself and half to the phantom in the water.  "You can't possibly understand me."

The fish didn't respond, but its betrayal didn't recede.  Daniel took a step backwards, then turned around quickly and walked into the aquarium's hall.

He didn't go back to the see the angelfish again for the rest of the night.  In the back of his mind, Daniel could feel the fish's disappointment in him, its dark eyes still staring.

*       *     *

Daniel drove home in the early morning.  The sky was still dark, the sun a dull point on the horizon.  The front door was unlocked; he pushed it open and went in.

  Molly was sprawled in the dark living room, her upper body on the ratty sofa and her legs lying on the floor.  When Daniel shut the door behind him, she turned to look at him, gray eyes bleary and confused.

"Where the hell've you been?" Molly muttered, covering her eyes with one hand to block out the hall light.

"At work," said Daniel.

Molly ran her hand down her face and then planted her hands on the sofa cushion and pushed herself up.  She stood, swaying slightly, rubbing her forehead.  Then, in a quick, smooth movement, she swung around, suddenly angry.

"My mom called."

Daniel nodded, but didn't say anything.  He didn't know what his mother-in-law had said, but he didn't want to make Molly angrier.  The house was quiet and still, the only noise the buzzing of the hallway light.

"She wanted to know if you were planning on getting a job.  Y'know, going to college."

"I have a job," Daniel said quietly, already feeling exhausted.  He knew, even as he spoke, that Molly wasn't going to care.

"A job," she said, voice rising to a screech at the end.  "You call that a job?  That's nothing!  A real job, where you wear a suit and work nine to five.  Not one where you stay out all night and sleep all day and make no money!  If you think that's a real job, you're pathetic."

She stepped forward, clumsy and awkward, as she spoke.  Her eyes were still glassy, but now they were focused on Daniel with ferocious intensity.

"You're thirty-five, Daniel!  You're thirty-five and what do you have to show for yourself?  Nothing!"

Molly lunged forward again, still unsteady, and then stood by the table resting on one side of the room.  She stared at him, her face pale except for a dull red flush on her cheeks, her lips pressed into thin bloodless lines.  

"I hate your job," she snapped suddenly.  "Did you hear me?  I hate it."

"I heard," said Daniel.  He ran a hand through his hair, and thought about going back to the aquarium.  His shift was over, but if he bought a ticket, he could probably wander around for a while.  He wanted to go back to the angelfish again, to reassure himself that everything had only been his imagination.

"You aren't listening to me," Molly screamed suddenly, mouth wide and red, eyes bulging from dark, sunken sockets.  Her hair, dirty and tangled, surrounded her head like a sick halo.  She screamed again, a high, wordless shriek, and then picked up a glass from the table by her elbow and threw it.

It shattered against the plaster wall, shards raining down to land in the hall carpet.  Daniel looked at it, then looked at Molly.  She was staring at the spot where the glass hit, looking almost confused.

"Are you done with your temper tantrum?" Daniel asked.  She looked at him, and he realized that she was crying, silently.

"You," she said, and then seemed to decide against whatever she was going to say.  "I just... you..."

If she thought that he would listen after everything, she was crazy.  But she was crazy, a crazy, drunken wreck.

"Clean this up," Daniel said, indicating the shards of glass embedded in the ground.  She 

looked at where he was pointing, then collapsed bonelessly to the ground, tears and snot running down her face and soaking the front of her shirt.  Daniel looked at her, pity and disgust mingling together, and then opened the door and left the house.

*     *     *

The aquarium was crowded when Daniel got back, filled with couples and families, laughing and talking and filling up the building with sound.  Daniel didn't like it.  He was used to the murky silence that seeded throughout the building, and this was ugly, raucous, irritating.  There were too many people, and as Daniel stood in the lobby, he couldn't feel the usual comfort the aquarium provided him.  Instead, all he could feel were the people around him, pressing inwards to suffocate him with their presence.

Daniel made his way to the room that the angelfish was housed in, but when he arrived, it was filled with children, laughing and pointing at the tanks.  A school trip, probably.  He couldn't even get near the angelfish without fighting through a mob of little kids.

It wasn't worth it, Daniel decided.  He didn't feel like dealing with so many people.  He would look at the angelfish later.  Instead, Daniel headed towards the room with the coelacanth.

The coelacanth wasn't in a tank.  It wasn't a living fish - the aquarium didn't have the status or the resources to house such a rare animal.  Instead, it was a taxidermic model, a stuffed skin.  The aquarium kept it in a side room, on a pedestal with a glass covering and a little plaque explaining what it was.  The coelacanth was Daniel's favorite fish.

Daniel stood in front of the glass case and watched it.  The room was empty, and the quiet felt thick and charged, like streams of energy were humming through the room.  Daniel took a breath, and at that moment, the coelacanth looked at him.

He took a step back, and then looked at the case again.  The coelacanth was lying perfectly still, eyes dull and empty.  But Daniel knew.  Just like the angelfish, the coelacanth understood him.

"You... you can't.  You can't know me."

It did, though.  Daniel could tell.  And it wanted to help him.

"How could you--"

"There you are," a voice said suddenly.  "Who the hell are you talking to?"

Daniel swung around, startled and horrified.  His boss, Mr. Allans, was standing in the doorway.

Mr. Allans stepped forward, glancing quickly around the room before walking towards Daniel.  He was a short, heavyset man with close-cropped gray hair and the face of a bulldog.  As the head of the aquarium, he was responsible for everything, from security to attractions.  As Daniel's boss, he took sadistic pleasure in making Daniel unhappy.

Mr. Allan's stopped, and squinted beady eyes at Daniel, lip raised in a sneer.

"Jim told me he saw you in the front.  I need to talk to you about your performance."

Daniel opened his mouth, but when he tried to speak, nothing came out.  He took a sharp breath, swallowed, waited for Mr. Allans to strike.

"Lately, you haven't been doing your job right.  You have one damn thing to do, and that's walk around the building and make sure nothing's going on.  How come you can't even do that, hmm?"

Daniel blinked, confused.  "But I have been doing that," he said uncertainly.

"The cameras show you stayed in the angelfish room for almost an hour," Mr. Allans said angrily.  "That isn't okay.  You're supposed to be patrolling, not gaping at the fish."

"But I was -" Daniel started.

"I don't give a crap what you think you were doing," Mr. Allans interrupted.  "If you want to keep your job, and you damn well do, you're not going to be slacking off anymore.  Don't you even think of hanging around the stupid fish.  If you do, I swear your ass'll be out so quickly you won't know what happened.  And remember, there aren't many jobs in this town, so you need to keep this one.  Do it right.  Do what I pay you to do, and stay away from the fish.  Got it?"

Mr. Allans smirked at him, cruel and nasty.  Daniel's stomach twisted, rage slithering through him until he wanted to explode, but he knew Mr. Allans was right.  He needed the job.

"Yeah," Daniel choked out.  "I got it."

"Good," said Mr. Allans, already starting to walk away.  "You better."

Daniel stood alone in the room, clenching and unclenching his fingers.  He felt sick.  The world around him was muffled and crushingly small, the smells and sounds overwhelming.  Daniel took a step towards the hallway, and then he felt the coelacanth in the case behind him.

He turned, and saw it staring at him.  It didn't move, didn't turn its head or roll its eyes, but it was staring at him all the same.  Daniel, standing near the case, felt again like he had inhaled cold air.  He felt cool, and soothed.

"I can't come back," he told it, resting one hand on top of the case.  It didn't say anything, but Daniel felt its disappointment.

"I could lose my job," he explained.  It didn't care.

Daniel looked at the prone form.  It had so much to offer him, so much it wanted to offer him.  It could give him the freedom he wanted, but he had to be brave enough to take risks.  Another cold wave ran through him, leaving him feeling empty and content.

"I'll try," he told the coelacanth, and he felt its pride spike through him.

*     *     *

Daniel kept going back.  He couldn't help it.  The angelfish and the coelacanth drew him.  Every time he saw them, every time he looked into the angelfish's empty black eyes or at the coelacanth's stuffed scales, a sense of peace washed over him.  They knew him, understood him like nothing else in the world.  They had both experienced the freedom of the sea - the ultimate, absolute liberation.  Surrounded by nothing but water.  They wanted to give him the same joy.

Every time Daniel was away from the aquarium, he felt restless, angry at nothing.  Sleeping was difficult - he couldn't close his eyes without seeing the two fish floating in front of him, urging him to act.

"What do you want me to do?" Daniel would ask them.  Neither apparition ever responded.  Still, Daniel knew they were driving him towards something.  Once he figured out what they wanted, he would be free.  They only had his best interests at heart.

No matter how many times he went back, nothing changed.  The angelfish would gaze at him, the coelacanth would regard him impassively.  It was his turn to make a move, but Daniel had no idea what he needed to do.  His stomach hurt constantly from the pressures all around him, from Molly and his boss and his life, but more from the knowledge that he was missing something, the key to his happiness.  Daniel needed to find that key.  One night, he finally did.

*     *     *

It started innocently enough.  Daniel, alone in the aquarium at night, sick and exhausted and still angry at nothing, had been in the gift shop.  A glass mermaid statue was on one table, a discount sticker slapped over her gaudy turquoise tail.  Her lips were bulbous and red, her hair cascaded down her back in ringlets.  Her eyes, shiny and vapid, stared across the room as Daniel worked.  By the time he got to where the statue was set, Daniel wanted nothing more than for her to stop looking at him.

"Ugly thing," he muttered to himself, picking the statue up to inspect it.  Then, almost wihout thinking, he dropped it on the concerte floor.

It shattered, the noise jarringly loud in the dark.  Daniel stepped back from the broken glass, a feeling that he had never known before washing over him.

It was incredible.  All of the anger within Daniel was washed away.  He felt like a cool wave had hit him.  Daniel inhaled, shaking and thrilled.  He could feel the angelfish's satisfaction, the coelacanth's pride.  This was what they had been pushing him to do.  He needed to make his own freedom.  That was how he could be happy.

From that night on, for the first time he could remember, Daniel was truly, honestly happy.  He began a routine: after he got off work, he would spend the cold hours of the early morning doing whatever he wanted to, as the angelfish and the coelacanth looked on.  He broke into the local pet shop, scooped all of the pet fish into one tank, and knocked all of the other tanks onto the ground.  Exhilaration spread through Daniel as he stood in mess, surrounded by water and broken glass.  

He started a string of vandalism, petty crimes that he could do easily, destruction, and arson and theft.  No one in town was prepared for him.  No one could catch him.

Each time Daniel attacked, he felt the same euphoria run through him.  The angelfish and the coelacanth were proud of him.  This was how he could feel the freedom of the sea.  Daniel could live free of rules, restrictions, grasping grabbing trapping people.

Outside one morning, Daniel looked out towards the ocean.  It glinted, red and yellow and gold in the morning light, and Daniel was overwhelmed with love for it.  It was everything he had ever wanted, the exact opposite of his life in town.  It had given him everything he could ever dream of.

*     *     *

Just as Daniel's joy had come in one sudden, beautiful moment, his sorrow arrived suddenly, without warning.

One night, Daniel went to the angelfish's tank, only to realize with sudden, powerful horror: the tank was empty.

He looked around, tried to see if it was in another tank.  It wasn't.  Everything else was the same, but the angelfish was gone.

Shaking, sick with confusion and fear, Daniel stumbled out into the dark hallway and made his way to the coelacanth's tank.  His hands were trembling, and he could barely hold the flashlight to check the case.  And with another, even more overwhelming horror, Daniel saw that the coelacanth was gone too.

At the realization, Daniel could feel all of his strength run out of him, soak into the floor and leave him boneless.  He collapsed, leaning back against the coelacanth's tank as the world spun around him.

After an unknown amount of time, Daniel forced himself to stand up.  He needed to see Mr. Allans.  He needed to know what was going on.

The rest of the night passed in a dizzying blur.  Daniel sat in front of Mr. Allans' office for most of the time, occasionally getting up to pace around.  Finally, at eight in the morning, he heard footsteps heading down the hallway towards him.

"Daniel," Mr. Allans said, surprised and irritated.  "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Where are the angelfish and the coelacanth?" Daniel said, almost shouting.  Mr. Allans stared at him.

"The what?  What the hell?"

"The fish in the tank," said Daniel.  "The yellow angelfish.  The stuffed coelacanth."

Mr. Allans pursed his lips, thinking.  Daniel waited, feeling energy running through him.  He could barely, barely feel the angelfish and the coelacanth.  They weren't quite gone, but almost.

"Ah, I know what you're talking about," Mr. Allans said suddenly.  "We got rid of them."

"Why?" Daniel said, lunging forward.

"The angelfish wasn't getting any traffic.  It was a boring fish, nobody cared about it.  We needed the room for something exciting.  And the stuffed crap was even more boring.  Who cares about a dead fish?"

Daniel inhaled, gasped at him.  The angelfish and the coelacanth were both furious, both hateful. 

"How could you do that?" Daniel yelled.  Mr. Allans took a step back, confused, and stood pressed against the door to his office.

"Daniel, I don't get why you're so upset.  You're just being stupid.  You don't work with the things, you're the night guard.  And even if you did work with them, they're only fish."

Mr. Allans smiled patronizingly, spreading his hands out in front of him in a universal what can you do gesture.  Daniel watched him and could feel the angelfish's rage.  He saw it, staring at Mr. Allans, its eyes deep and cold.  The coelacanth, too, was staring at Mr. Allans.  They wanted Daniel to do something.  They wanted him to avenge them.  Daniel stood, desire warring with uncertainty.  Petty vandalism when no one was around was one thing.  But if Daniel made Mr. Allans angry, he could lose his job.  For a moment, Daniel was frozen, pulled in two directions.  Then the two appeared in his mind again, and it occurred to Daniel that it was entirely Mr. Allan's fault that both fish were gone.

"With all due respect, sir," said Daniel, and punched Mr. Allans in the face.

Mr. Allans reeled back, pressing his hand against his bleeding nose and looking stunned.  Daniel watched him, slightly startled at his own actions.  At the same time, he could feel the angelfish's satisfaction and the coelacanth's pride.  He could feel the freedom running through him.  What could Mr. Allans do?  He had no control over Daniel.

Mr. Allans suddenly took a step forward, still clutching his head.

"Are you insane?" he roared, mouth distended and eyes bulging.  "What is wrong with you?"

"I didn't like what you said about the fish," said Daniel.

Mr. Allans gaped at Daniel, incredulous and furious.  A slight trickle of blood ran from his swollen nose to his chin.

"You punched me," he said slowly, "because you didn't like what I said about the goddamned fish? "

Daniel nodded, satisfied.

"Get out," Mr. Allans screamed, lunging at Daniel.  "Get out!  I'm calling the cops on you, lunatic, and God help me, I swear you'll never get a job around here again.  Before night, everyone'll know that you're a maniac!  You're a psycho!"

Daniel took a step back, disgusted by the spittle flecks flying from Mr. Allans' mouth.  He smiled, still happy from his stand, and turned around.

It was only as he was heading through the lobby towards the main doors that reality hit him.  He couldn't ever see the angelfish or the coelacanth again.  They were gone.  And with them went his freedom, his happiness.  Now he had nothing left.  He was stuck in the town, with Molly, with Mr. Allans who hated him more than ever.  He was trapped more than he had ever been before.

Daniel stepped out of the building and looked around at the surrounding streets and buildings.  Suddenly, the town felt horribly small.  The buildings seemed to be moving closer and closer, like walls pressing in on him.  They were moving towards him, pulling forwards and inwards like he was standing in the middle of a singularity, a black hole.  As he watched, wood and glass and metal stretched and warped, drawn towards him.  They reached dead arms out to grasp him, to trap him.

He drew in another breath, shaky and terrified, and suddenly, he smelled salt air.  The reminder of the ocean pierced through the fear.  He imagined the cool water, the deep currents.  In the water, there were no buildings to contain him, no demands like work or marriage to surround him, to pull him down.

The knowledge soothed him; the world shifted back into its rightful place.  He knew what he needed to do.  Daniel got in the car, and drove home.  When he arrived, Molly was gone, and so were her clothes and trinkets.  Daniel stared around at the stripped house, at the empty closet and the bare rooms, and felt nothing but emptiness.  He collapsed into bed, still wearing his uniform, and slept until night.

*     *     *

When Daniel woke up again, the sky was dark and the stars were out.  He got up, and left the house.  He didn't bother to lock the door.

Throughout his entire life, it occurred to him, he had been following other people's orders, doing what he was supposed to do instead of what he wanted to do.  He needed to seek what he wanted, Daniel realized.  He would never be happy if he remained a doormat, allowing others to control his life.  If he lived like that, he would always be trapped.

The realization shook him, terror and liberation warring within his mind.  It was obvious what he needed to do.  There was no place left in town for him, no place in the entire human world for him.  But that was okay, because he wasn't human.  It was obvious.  No human could feel as trapped as he did, no human could be drawn towards the ocean as much as he was.  No human could emphasize with the angelfish or the coelacanth like he did.

The coelacanth and the angelfish looked on proudly as Daniel drove towards the marina.  The night sky was vast and empty, and full of stars.  It was obvious to Daniel why he never fit in - he wasn't a human, he was a fish. The angelfish glowed with joy, the coelacanth radiated pleasure.

Daniel parked the car by the dock, and stepped out.  He didn't bother to remove his shoes or clothes as he stepped onto the beach and walked out towards the dark water.  As he crossed the sand, he could feel the the ocean pull him.  In the water, Daniel knew, he would never worry about anything again.  He would have total freedom, instead of the total oppression that had controlled his life before.

Daniel stepped into the surf, waves lapping at his shoes and pant cuffs.  He stepped forward, careful not to let the push of the water knock him off balance.  Standing neck deep, he took one last look around at the human world, and plunged his head into the cold salt water to embrace his freedom, letting his feet get swept from under him.

And then, Daniel realized, something was wrong.

The ocean wasn't soothing him.  It was giving him freedom, yes, but too much - he didn't have anywhere to stand.  The ground that had trapped him gave him support as well, and suddenly, it was gone and there was only water, water all around him.

Daniel inhaled water, which burned his lungs and made him cough.  He retched, and broke the surface of the water, sucking in air.  It was no use.  Even as he took a breath, he was pulled back down, and reflex caused him to breath again, to inhale more burning water.  The salt stung his eyes, made them twitch closed.  The currents tossed him about, made him dizzy and confused.  He couldn't tell which way was up.

He gasped, kicked, struggled to stay on the surface, only to feel his shoes and clothes drag him down again, down to the depths.  He pushed himself upwards, but his strength was no match for the pressure of the water all around him, and he couldn't reach the surface.  For one pure, cold second, it occurred to Daniel that the freedom of the ocean was too great and terrible, that - fish or human - it overwhelmed him.  Then the water was over his head and darkness surrounded him.