This is Water

“Mr. Dolos?” Ally cautiously asked the man who sat hunched, sitting on the bench. The bench was in front of the glass of the aquarium’s largest tank. The glass curved up and over, before disappearing into the black ceiling and walls. At the bench, one was forced to confront a wall of water in front and above.

The confrontation of that water was crushing Ally with anxiety. She went to sit next to the man after he confirmed his identity with a nod and hum, while chewing a mouth full of food. Ally had a fear of open water; she couldn’t swim. She was feeling suffocated, as if the weight of the water was not behind a thick layer of glass, and was crushing her from all sides.

She tried to focus on easing her breathing. To divert her nervous tension, she gripped tightly onto the strap of her back. Her fingers pushed so hard into it, it would be unsurprising if they punctures the leather strap.

Mr. Dolos scooped the last of his pomegranate seeds from a plastic deli-style container. He paused before mouthing it in, and offered her a bite. Ally refused, and Mr Dolos finished it off. He tossed the container to the other side, where his sandwich rapper, which he earlier inhaled, laid.

It was hard to look anywhere but at the large tank, filled with alien-like fish, in an exceptionally large tank of water. Ally tried to find somewhere on the floor to stare.

Mr. Dolos swallowed the last mouthful of food he had been chewing. He rolled his shoulders back, but remained hunched in posture. His hair was flicking the odd curl up, as if he was overdue for a trim. His facial hair, however, was well-groomed. The tight and even hairs on his lower face distracted the eyes from his sleepless bags under his own eyes.

“Yes,” Mr. Dolos paused to cleared his throat. “I’m he. Ally Pate, a pleasure to finally meet in person.” He extended his hand. It was a little too firm of a grip for a handshake. “Please, call me Frank.”

There was a bustling flow of a constant change of people around her. Adults chattered with on another, and it all overlapped into a humming noise, almost like running water.

The children ran about. They squealed and giggled, and planted their palms and faces against the glass before running off after their parents.

The pair sat in silence for a moment before Frank finally spoke.

“Two young fish are swimming.” He paused and swiped his tongue under his lips and along his teeth, cleaning food debris that had remained.

“…So, while they are swimming with the current—going with the literal flow—they see an older fish. He’s swimming in the opposite direction to them. As the older fish passes by, he greets the pair and says: Morning, boys. How's the water?.

“The two young fish continue swimming on. Then, one of the young fish stops. He turns around, towards the older fish, and asks: What’s water?”

Frank looked at Ally, waiting for her reaction, still tonguing at a seeds that laid lodged between his teeth. Ally eventually forgot her nervousness from the water in front of her, and gave a brief chortle in the form of a single laugh.

“That’s a terrible jokes.” She replied.

“A terrible joke? No, no no. That is a terrible retelling of a parable, from David Foster Wallace. A talented man, sadly, no longer with us. It’s an important parable, all the same. He had his own meaning for it, certainly. But, what does it mean to you?”

He looked at Ally, with a furrowed brow. Ally, didn’t take to his meaning. She wasn't there for a philosophy lesson. She was there for answers. She looked away, and directly at the tank of water, unafraid. There were fish, hypnotically swimming by. She took a deep and sighing breath, in and out.

“I don't have time for this. Your message said it was important. Why here? What did you find out?”

“In a rush for knowledge, Ms. Pate? Is that where you place the value?…Well if the parable, or joke as you called it, is nothing to you, how about a story?"

“Is it relevant?"

“Hm… relevance is a matter of perspective, isn't it? Indulge me."

Frank adjusted his sleeves. Ally’s eyes were drawn down to his wrist. The scar on his wrist was one Ally recognised. She had known someone with the same scar. She averted her gaze from his scarred wrist, back to the fish tank. She wondered if showing her the scar was a calculated measure—to invoke an insatiable pity.

“Go on, then.” Ally yielded. “Afterwards, I need answers.”

***

A man stood, barely sheltered from the rain. He was between two buildings. The area was poorly lit. The streetlight above him had blown out. He had beens standing there for over an hour, watching the apartment building across the street. He just stood there, in the rain and in the dark, watching.

His thick, dark, Italian wool coat, had been breached by the rain. The cold damp ached its way into his back. His muscles and bones cried for warmth. But the man was distracted by his focus on the apartment, across the street.

He had hoped to surprise his girlfriend, Noemi, when she got home. It was an important night for him. Noemi had no idea he was going to drop by with his surprise. He played it through in his mind, over and over, how it would happen. His hand occasionally reached for his breast pocket. He thumbed at the outline of the square shape which was nestled in that deep pocket.

The thought of another woman, Loretta, pierced into his mind, uninvitedly. The man’s ghosts haunted him. The past often does. His relationships had never ended well. Loretta was his first, and no one ever forgets their first.

He scratched at his freshly clean-shaven neck. He rubbed along his strong square jaw. He knew, even wet as a stray dog, Noemi would look lovingly at him. She loved his dark brown, loose-lock curls, and his icy blue eyes. He had a single fleck in his left eye, a honey brown streak. Noemi described it as a sign of a trustworthy face. The man did indeed have a trustworthy face, and handsome by any measure. What was dangerous about his handsome face, was that he knew it was.

***

A placid shark slowly swam by. Ally’s heart thumbed a little higher in her chest. She knew she was safe behind the glass, but the darkness around them, and the sight of the shark, still unsettled her.

“So he wanted to propose. So? Was she cheating on him? Is that what you are getting at? Is this your way of telling me…?” Ally impatiently interrupted the story.

Frank smiled and rolled his stare to Ally. “Ally, is that short for Allison?” His smirk cut Ally down.

“You know it isn’t." The only thing Ally hated more than her real name, Alethia, was when people assumed her name was Allison.

Frank only grinned deeper. “May I continue, Ally?”

***

Noemi arrived, scuttling towards home. She shielded her head with a newspaper. The rain hadn’t been in the forecast that day, so she had no umbrella with her. It had rained all day. Puddles formed miniatures lakes all over the roads. She leapt over puddles that were in her way, and too large to walk around.

She arrived at the 1920s-built apartment, and let herself in. The building was deep-red brick, which had darkened from pollution over the years. The man had seen her arrival and waited another five minutes before crossing the street to the building.

He toyed once more with the square tipped object in his breast pocket, while looked at the coin slotted in front of the small camera that was fixed into the directory panel.

His finger landed on the sixth buzzer down. The name had faded away and needed replacing. But, like the coin in front of the camera, and any other issues reported, it was left unattended by the unmotivated maintenance worker for the building. The man adjusted himself into a confident pose as the speaker rang.

“Hello?” A soft, yet inviting voice floated through the speaker.

“Hey, Noemi, it’s me. Can I come up?”

“Oh! I was just thinking of you. Yes, come on up!” Her delight in her voice was as infectious as the laugh, which had endeared the man, and many others who knew her.

There was a buzz at the door, followed by a click to unlock it. The man walked in and shook off the rain. He scraped his feet along the welcome mat and passed through another set of doors, to the ground-floor hallway. The inside was warm and burned his red-cold ears and damp-sore back.

The inside of the building was as well worn and aged as the outside. The shellac wainscotting was a distant cry from its former glory. The cream wall paper bulged and yellowed, and the stairs snapped their creaks as the man ascended them.

He climbed quickly to the third floor, and showed no signs of panting. His heart rate and breaths remained low and slow. The man prided himself on keeping a good physical condition.

Noemi swung her front door open. She was much shorter than him, and planted a welcoming kiss onto his lips. She had to go up onto her tiptoes and pull his face downwards, to hers.

“Hector! I’m so happy to see you!”

He smiled at her, with love fully in his eyes. “Mmm, I love how you say my name.”

“Well, Hector, don’t stand on ceremony. Come inside. Take your coat off. You’re soaking wet. Did you get caught without an umbrella today, too, Hector?” She emphasised his name, and was giddy to see him smile more lovingly at her.

***

“A love story, I get it. Can you get to the point? I would rather not be here.” Ally had grown more impatient.

"Where would you rather be?” Frank questioned, and waited for her response. Ally had no answer that satisfied her, let alone Frank.

“Fine. Keep going.”

***

Noemi led him inside and closed the door. She may have just gotten home, but the ambiance of the warm lights and opera playing, filled the room with an established coziness.

Noemi walked to her liquor bottles. She grabbed two glasses and began to pour them a drink each.

“It's Charles Gounod, before you ask. And take off any wet coat, or else you may catch your death in it.” Still with her back to him, she placed their drinks down, onto the coffee table. She tapped her phone, which also sat on the coffee table, and it lit up. She was going to turn the music down.

“Leave it. It’s a good volume” The man was calm, but there was an excitement in his voice.

Noemi turned around to face him, as he was reaching into his pocket. She smiled at him. It was only a brief smile. It curdled to a curious look as she looked down to his feet. He had put on disposable shoe protectors.

His hand, in his breast pocket, pulled out. He held the square handle of his gun, and aimed the silencer at Noemi. Confusion and fear swallowed her face. Before she could scream, the man fired three bullets into her.

She fell to the floor, and bled. She used what strength she could to speak. In a strained and quiet voice, “Hector?” was all she could manage.

Hector wasn’t his real name. Very few people left in the world knew it. The man’s face fell blank from the emotional display of love he had had on before. He placed his gun back into his break pocket.

He pulled out a pair of gloves from his side pocket, as well as a notebook and pen. He walked over to Noemi’s fish-tank and pocketed a small hidden camera to the side of it. Noemi’s head rolled to face him. She hadn’t the strength to look away from the fish-tank after that.

He cleaned hard surfaces, which he had touched on previous visits and noted down. He crossed them off his list, as he went along. He grabbed her phone from the table and aimed it at her dying face to unlock it. He deleted his burner phone's number and messages to her, and crossed another item off his list.

He tossed her phone onto the couch, and headed to the hallway closet. He grabbed a handheld vacuum and used it on as much of the couch and floor that he could. He placed the vacuum in a paper grocery bag, from under he kitchen sink. He placed the bag by the front door, so he wouldn’t forget it on his way out.

He walked as close as he could to Noemi, without stepping in the blood that was pooling around her. He grabbed a card from his pocket, with a black-tip shark on it. He tossed it onto her body. It was a calling card, of sorts, from the group who hired the hit. The hit on her wasn’t to do with her, she was just a message. Someone who valued her in their life, tried to skip out on a debt they had owed to the wrong people.

He had come into Noemi’s life when his employers realised the debtor may not make good on payments. Forming a relationship with her was something the man viewed as a job perk, like he had with Loretta, his first hit.

He grabbed one of the two drinks she had poured for them. He necked it back and put it in the paper bag with the vacuum in it. He was sure to clear away any trace of him, or an invited guest.

His ears perked as he was readying to leave. There was a sound of running water coming from the bathroom. He had already wiped down all the surfaces in there, and figured he knocked the tap on. He yawned and stretched his neck from side-to-side. He was ready to head home and put his feet up.

But the man knew leaving a running tap was risky. Old apartments, like this one, had terrible pipes. The overflow spill couldn’t always clear away the water fast enough. The last thing he needed was a neighbour complaining too soon about water from her apartment. The order was for her to bleed out, she couldn't be found right away.

He headed to the bathroom and flicked the switch. The light flickered, then settled on. It wasn’t the sink, but the bathtub that was filling. It was a black water that was pouring in from the tap, and filling the tub. He turned his nose up, disgusted by the sight of the water. He tried to turn it off, but the nobs wouldn’t spin in either direction.

He knelt down and rolled up his coat sleeves. He removed one of his gloved, and plunged that arm into the tub. He could feel the plug, but the black water had an oiliness to it. He almost peeled the plug up, but it slipped from his grip. The drain suctioned the plug back down.

He was concentrating on trying to peel the plug up, one more time, as the water continued to fill, now up to his elbow. His eyes strained trying to see through the black water, and only showed his reflection.

Suddenly, his eye was caught as his reflection changed. A different face emerged from the black water. It was a pale blue and beautiful woman’s face. Her hair was dark, and shined a seaweed green in the light.

The figure sang a song in a language the man had never heard before. He was overcome with the need to kiss her. As he did, her skin seemed to continue to sing the song. She placed her hands on his semi-submerged arm. His skin blemished as it burned and bubbled from her acid touch.

The man hadn’t noticed it at first, and was slowly leaning closer to the water’s surface, as she withdrew down. A moment before entering the water, his eyes opened and he tried to pulled away from her kiss. The pale blue woman grabbed him by his coat and pulled him under.

There was thrashing in the water for a few minutes, before the water calmed. After a moment, the water cleared and there was no sign left of the man or the pale blue woman.

***

“What…what happened? What happened to Noemi, was she found? What took the man?” Ally was left demanding more from Frank’s tale.

Frank smiled. “Tell me, Alethia, how’s the water? Is this water? Or is that water” He pointed to the tank in front of them.

Ally stood and walked passed the small crowd that gathered in front of her, to watch the shark placidly swim by once more. She stood at the tank looked at her own reflection. She was gnawed at by something troubling, which she couldn’t place. Something was missing from her life, and she had come to Frank for answers.

She realised, despite hearing the crowd around her, and seeing them from the corner of her eyes—in the reflection, she was alone in the aquarium. She looked at the foreboding mass of water that lay before her. She looked deep into the water. She couldn't see through to the other side of the tank.

The water grew dark, almost as black as an abyss. And there, she observed, not at the water, but through it. There she saw the truth, the real truth.

She whispered to herself, “Noemi, this is water. This is water.”