The Atlantic easterlies blasted in from Africa towards the Floridian coast. Two brothers, Jeb 20 and Mutter 10 years old, had been shark-fishing about 20 miles off shore in their yawl when the weather kicked up. Their anchored boat's bow began to bump up and down on the gently lapping waves. The wind started breezy at first then came at the brothers with more conviction. The mizzenmast bowed slightly from the force even with the sail fully retracted. The sound of the anchor's taught rope sung an ever wrenching chorus of differing pitches--like a guitar plucked during tuning. The contents of the center console's shallow bin began to slide back and forth noisily.
"That'll scare the fish." Mutter thought as he tossed Jeb's windbreaker onto the keys to stifle the sound.
"Throw the rest of the chum out!" Jeb called to Mutter from down inside the galley. The tendons and veins in his next bulged out like thick steel cables with the effort.
A kind of squeaky sun-baked dryness had run its course over the day. Mutter was getting burned badly. He was almost glad for the newly forming overcast skies. His back was a plotch-dappled testimony to one man's differing skin pigments. Burned here, oddly white there, somewhere in between over there. He reached down into the oily bag of fish rind noting their bone-squishy consistency. He thought briefly about getting it between his toes and how gross that would be. Overhead a small cloud of birds noisily chattered their secret language. He looked at the sad, forlorn expressions on the tiny dead smelt and whitefish faces he was tossing to their last resting place. The evident meaning of that last strange thought seemingly etched into the glazed over looks on their faces...
Every step was a new adventure in balance along the uplifting prow in the newly swirling gales... One step forward Mutter went then two steps back. He haphazardly tossed the chum starboard into the water and watched it float to the top of the wave's crest then disappear. He imagined the scent's particles traveling through the water. The lingering smell of blood. How did fish know about the food so quickly? Already the water beneath the fiberglass hull was a flurry of spray and famished fervor. The fish eyed one another through the intestinal turbidity as they devoured the chum. Traveling in schools had its pros and cons for the individual fish Mutter decided.
The weather got worse and lightning web-crackled across the cobalt-blue sky like gunshots. Mutter tried to imagine the fisheye view of the world from down below looking up--the swimming creature's gills undulating pensively.
It was a good day for deep sea fishing despite the rough weather. The Loran fish finder had bounced its sonar off a particularly dense group of fish. One of the cluster of fins in particular showed up as being quite large and Mutter was alarmed enough about it to call Jeb out of his sun-struck malaise down stairs. On closer inspection of the finder it looked more as if the other fish were trying to get away form the ponderous object swimming among them. Jeb emerged from beneath into the dwindling sunlight. He stood erect straightening up--arms akimbo.
He leaned over the fish finder and did a doubletake.
"Good lord, there's something the size of a small bus down there," He offered.
The sun was setting and the the boys entertained their wild imaginations by talking about what the behemoth below might be. If it was a whale and they waited long enough it might surface for air and they would get to see it. The boys sat for a while in the small boat taking care not to hang their arms or legs over the side.
After a little while something quite strange happened. Something large seemed to emerge out of the water. Torrents of rivulets streamed down its leviathan proportions. It wasn't a whale but a large jewfish. The jewfish emerged slowly as audible pops and cracks emanated from its body in response to its release from the enormous pressure below. Its gigantic head loomed large as it came into view.
"I had previous knowledge of your arrival here today. You have angered me!" said the fish. Its bleary expression grew taut as it dried in the sun speckled air.
"You come to my home and take the food from my mouth. You have birds with six pack holders wound so tight around their beaks that they starve to death. Oil slicks miles thick that my friends tell me are cropping up more and more in their parts of the world. You try to breathe in that stuff much less eat whats in it! You sink the husks of your metal junk down here and call them artificial reefs. Oh I overheard a lot by swimming beneath your boats and I have had all a fish can stand. You committed mass fishicide here today tossing all those corpses overboard."
The two boys looked at each other, incredulous. Talking fish that were environmentally sensitive... This was too much.
"You ever wonder about Red Tide?" the jewfish continued. "Sure, you people want to call it an algae bloom. You know what it really is. Red tide is really when all the fish collect a little piece of stinking trash and swim for miles to a particular stretch of coast in unison. A return to sender of sorts... A silent protest they make to the senses of those who refuse to hear.
"The signs are all around. Their floating lifeless in the water. Its not just fish either. All the animals for that manner have had it with man. There ready to stage a protest in the only way that they can to make man understand.
"What do you have to say for yourselves before I put forth my plan for you?" The fishes dorsal fin switched back and forth like a metronome--keeping a rhythmic holding pattern in close proximity to the boat.
"Hey were really sorry," Jeb began. "We didn't do this...
"Lets see how you like to live life swimming through junk." The huge jewfish was fed up with excuses. It opened its giant mouth up and swallowed the small yawl --contents and all--crushing the tall mast that protruded skyward and sheering a link in the chain that held the anchor.
The boys were not chewed up on the way down the fish's gargantuan throat and they slid softly beneath the beast's padded palate. Inside the stomach it was dark and the plip-plop plip-drop sound of water trickle could be heard collecting around them.
"Are you believing this?" Mutter said to Jeb his voice quaked.
There was the heavy smell of rotting fish putrefaction all around and the contents of the fishes stomach made odd sounds as they float-rubbed together. Jeb stifled the urge to yak and tried to think about something else. The sounds sounded strange in the confined bowels of the Jewfish.
"You got that lighter in your pocket?" Jeb asked Mutter.
"Yea, I feel it--my pants are wet though..." Mutter muttered.
Click, click went the lighter. Nothing. Mutter blew heated breath into the lighter's flint spin wheel. Finally it sparked to life for a couple of seconds. In that brief time they could make out the carcasses of other fish in various stages of decomposure. The skeletal bodies were patchworks of rotting flesh. Trashy debris was visible from their innards. A ragged shoe floated past the pair.
"Jeb do you feel something? Its tingling on my skin."
"It's probably the fish's stomach acids, Mutter. Enzymes to break down its food. We may not have much time in here."
An indeterminable time passed. Blisters appeared on the boys bodies. Suddenly the jewfish made a great sound of regurgitation-- spitting the boys into the water.
"I ate you two today for a reason and it wasn't because I am hungry. We need someone to tell the world the things they wouldn't hear from us. Look closely overhead. The message is for world leaders to stop the polluting. Now you need an audience. Remember that." The Jewfish said knowingly.
The boys tread in the gooey sea water that floated around them not knowing quite what to expect. They had traveled some distance while in the fish's stomach and the sea itself seemed to be colored differently. The now cold water was chilling. On cue a mechanical noise from overhead could be discerned. The whirling of jet engines was audible. It grew louder. Suddenly a kamikaze like cry could be overhead. A squadron of birds of all makes and models hurled themselves lemming like at the other steel bird that approached. Closer the two came like an absurd game of chicken-- neither flinching. The flock headed staight for the jets turbine engines. Cachunk whhhiirrlll went the impact. The steel bird had been mortally wounded along with all its living imitators. It fell out of the sky its blue-white markings becoming increasingly clear as it grew closer. The words on it came into focus. People could be seen hastily emerging from it--parachutes opened in quick succession.
The planes carcass splashed down into the water. Feathers rained down around the boys. Men began to land softly in the water. Jeb recognized one of the descending men immediately from television. It was that man from Midland, Texas. The words on the sinking plane bobbed up and down.
"Air Force One," they read.
Bio: "I live in Naples Florida. My Favorite things are writing, weightlifting and running. I am 33 and was born in Kingsport, Tennessee. I graduated from Barron Collier High School. I received an A.A in Journalism from Hillsborough Community College. I Received my B.A in English from the University of South Florida in 1999."
E-mail: Democraft1967@aol.com
URL: http://hometown.aol.com/democrat1967/myhomepage/resume.html
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