The Fishbowl

I hover in pools of blue-green gloom, undulating light filtered through water, glass, vitreous humor thick with dreams of pure, clear, unimpeded sight, unimpeded knowledge, which way to turn, which A leads to what B, what C. How all paths lead to D, and then the terror of unimpeded knowledge, glimpsed in the glancing light, and the easy retreat, the siren call of the half-light again, in deep blues and greens, distorting edges and darker recesses. I hover. In the subaquatic gloaming I am cocooned, held, stasis-like by the endless lopping muffled soundtrack, an imagining of the composition an orchestra of squid might play for endless hours on the seabed to lull the passing whales to keep passing, and not look down. I am drowning. Air, or water, it does not matter, my blood is filled with oxygen, bright and red and capable of staining the blue a darker hue, but still, my brain is starving, my consciousness waning with every passing particle of time.

In this crepuscular cavern, sconces of luminous blue pick out the borders, flickering green fronds, the occasional brownish red, brownish grey, brownish yellow, completing the backdrop, and then, dazzling in myriad colours, life flits, swoops and turns. And hovers. We watch one another, both hovering, suffocating, breathing normally. Do I know you? Your life? Those small, repeating circles, facing into the light and away again, again and again? Passing by the darkest crevices, heart beating faster as you push along the well-worn path, leading, inexorably, to nothing. You all look the same. Some big, some small, round, long, flat or broad, in startling orange, white, yellow, indigo, but all the same, really. One in a thousand stands out. It isn’t you. I think I know you. What you want.

In here, we are safe, you and I. As safe as it gets. The same temperature all year round. The same light. The same dark. Predictable. Steady. Isn’t that what we all want? To feel safe? I want it too, more than anything. Not just for me, you understand. For the family that rush around me too, their wake buffeting me, stirring up this little patch of world, my whole world, oxygenating my soporific brain. For them, more than me, I think. Or is it the same thing?

This brain is primed for safety. We have that in common, I suppose. This skin senses the shifting sands and what danger lies beneath, our mouths taste offerings of poisoned meat and these eyes detect the looming shadow of mortal peril, even before we see the brightening light of new pleasures. Even here, where we are cossetted in a soft edged twilight of obfuscated sight lines and murmuring song. And even here, especially here, this brain is primed for something more. Dampened, smoothed over and smothered, I want something more. Look at you, this diorama of a world you inhabit? What is that like? Are you conscious of your heart beating, of the blood in your capillaries, suffusing your tissues with life? I wonder, as you stare at me, are you yearning for what I have? For this body, so perfectly designed to move through this world, fast, efficient, fun perhaps? For this world, bright with wonders laid out like a playground, teeming with life? For this life? For comfort and community? For freedom? Is that what you imagine? That is what you have already, no? What lies beyond this moment between you and I? Beyond these pools of blue-green gloom?

I can’t help you, you know. There is nothing I can do. The walls may be glass, but I have nothing to break them with, and if I did….could you survive?