fish upon the sea

by PAVE
467 words

it had been a quiet morning at the docks. the sun was late to rise, as if it too had grown tired of the river. but the fisherman went out anyway, as he always did—grumbling about nets and rope and how his boat creaked more than his knees.

when he came back, though, his boat was different. heavy, dragging, the nets straining with something they were not meant to hold. he pulled and pulled until his arms went weak, and at last it rolled onto the deck—a shape. not a fish, not a man. yet it sang.

oh, how it sang!

the fisherman swore the song was a hymn, or a prayer, or maybe only a hum—but he couldn’t tell, because it wormed straight into his teeth, into the bones of his skull. “quiet!” he begged the thing, though he was alone. he threw a tarp over it, and still the song seeped through the cloth, the boards, the water.

by the time he reached the shore, the whole town had heard it.

“did you hear that?” one boy asked, tugging at his mother’s skirt. “a flute?”

“no flute,” the blacksmith muttered, ears ringing.

by nightfall, the tavern was in chaos. the fisherman, pale and shaking, slammed his mug on the table. “it sang,” he spat, “i tell you it sang! even now, it sings! you can’t hear it?”

and some of them could. one woman gasped into her drink, “i did hear it, last night. a lullaby, soft as the tide. i swear i did.”

“a lullaby? pah!” the butcher’s wife hissed. “that was no lullaby—it was weeping. don’t you hear the sorrow in it?”
fish upon the sea 

but another voice piped up, quiet and fearful: “i thought it was laughing…”

the room grew still at that.

laughter. from the nets. from the river. from the thing.

the fisherman buried his face in his hands. “you don’t understand,” he groaned, “i can’t sleep. the song—it’s in me. even when i cover my ears. even when i close my mouth. even when i dream. i’ll go mad, i swear i will.”

“then show us!” cried a man from the crowd. “show us what you caught!”

a murmur rippled through the tavern, but the fisherman only shook his head. “i burned it,” he said, “i dragged it to the shore, poured oil on it, lit it aflame. the smoke went black as sin.”

a pause. then, “and did the singing stop?”

the fisherman did not answer.

instead, he rose, his mug clattering to the floor. “close your windows,” he whispered. “bolt your doors. the river remembers. it has a voice now.”

and as he stumbled out into the night, the town sat in silence. until—oh, until—the youngest boy, the one with ears sharp as foxes, began to hum.

the same song.