I always talk about parts of fiction that are true and how writing fiction is an opportunity to store the past – or is storing the past an opportunity for fiction? Sometimes I plant things poignant, sometimes sentimental, I can blame my characters for any over-sentimentality, whether such a thing exists or not I feel I must apologize for it, this comes from growing up in a household where people ridiculed sensitivity – excuse me while I execute a short but meaningful raspberry at those hard-hearted few. Sometimes I hide funny things that are untellable in real life, due to lack of opportunity or guts, but characters can say what they like, and that’s the case with the tinnitus in this one – I was wondering why, during the multiple heatwaves we’ve had this summer, there are no cicadas when it hit me.

I was just getting the hang of Fahrenheit when they changed it to Celcius and I can’t get the swing of either now, and due to declined heat sensitivity – I practice hot yoga which is ridiculous and glorious at once, the temp in that room is like 40 degrees Celsius which means nothing to me – I suggest things like hikes or bike rides and everybody balks, not just the chickens, who, btw, I intend to rename because of this story, maybe from Love in the Time of Cholera.

Sometimes I try things out on my characters and their strange behaviour on the page encourages me to give their quirks a whirl, life is mostly in the bass and treble after all.

Thanks for being here.

The Shape of Me by Sherry Cassells

Last night Sarah said there was a hole in her life and I imagined it, small and shaped like me. I didn’t tell her about my holes like buckshot, didn’t tell her anything at all, she knew I was at work and unable to have a proper conversation. Sarah never wanted anything proper, nothing normal, I hung up and changed my ringtone to something deep bass.

Some douche was standing there looking at me like he couldn’t wait another second for his fish – oh hang on, that’s misleading – it’s not a restaurant but an aquarium where I work.

People say fish have a two second memory but it’s not true, they say a fish’ll see a piece of not food and go oh look, food! and then suck it in spit it out oh look, food! in out repeat but it’s only because, and this is not a hasty conclusion but one drawn after many nights of careful observation –  fish are optimists.

So this guy he says he wants a Molly, sounds like a drug deal I know, so we go to the tank all the velvety blackness swimming around it’s beautiful. I grab a net and close my eyes because I know these fish and I don’t want to play favourites. I don’t trust this guy. I get a lot of weirdos right before closing. What normal person buys fish at midnight? He says not that one; that one and it’s Marble he wants, everybody wants Marble, the only fish in the tank with vitiligo. I pretend I can’t catch him and I can see the guy moving for me, finally he says lemme try and I say can’t, not allowed. Marble decides to slide right into the net like suicide and still I don’t catch him, the guy hates me now, he says forget it, and when it's time for bed Marble’s gone, that son of a bitch took him.

If tinnitus comes in bass that’s what I’ve got, bass tinnitus, bassitus, I hear a deep rumble from those tanks all night even when I close the door, and tonight it’s tinged with Ozzy. My Aunt Lydia had the real tinnitus, she couldn’t hear cicadas in the summertime because she always heard cicadas, she said I wonder where all the hit bugs is Hanky, they musta shoved off, the rest of her hearing was stellar, my dewey footsteps across the lawn at two or whatever in the morning woke her up every time.

Some of the fish here are worth a bomb, there’s a three thousand dollar shark in the upstairs window, lots of rare beauties that are around five hundred a piece, and sea anemones, the colourful ones, they look tie-dyed, they’re three hundred dollars for one the size of your eyeball, there are these white sheets that sway like ghosts in the water for one fifty, it’s the exotic ones that the late-night shoppers want, they head straight down to the basement, nobody wants the common fish that hang like pasta in your tank.

I am the salt water guy in the basement under blue lights. 

Practically everybody is nervous when they come down, there’s a rhythm to the din like the Jaws music and those bits from Psycho, they’re not sure anybody’s down there and all the fish turn to them, openly aghast, the creatures without eyes move unpredictably, haphazardly, things spark and glow and ripple and shear. I wear black for effect, never the orange vest they recommend, I half hiss hallooow like Gollum, the fish are used to me, and the ones with lips sometimes work up a wry sort of smile.

I hang false NOT FOR SALE signs on the side-by-side tanks of our two Longhorn Cowfish. Despite their size and unusual appearance, they are peaceful fish with a calm temperament. They are solitary by nature, and are known to display friendly behaviour toward humans. They are yellow and rectangle, they look like how you’d draw a legless cow if you totally sucked at drawing, yet they are somehow haughty and elegant, their faces are intelligent, I believe them to be honourable and decent, I call ours Oscar and Wilde. They have pale lips, chins, and they love me.

Nobody knows I stay here, they think I go home and sleep and then come in early, they pay three hours of overtime every day to clean the upstairs display tanks. Soon as I find myself a place, Oscar and Wilde are coming with me. It’s July 25th now, I’m saving like crazy, we’ll be out of here the first of September.

I don’t think about Sarah until I’m in bed and the bassitus hits, she comes to me with elements of the blue basement atmosphere, maybe the way the midnight guys feel as they descend the stairs into the unknown where everything is strange with a beat of the supernatural, I am unsure the substance of her, I amwas not -lorn but uninitiated, she iswas my soft launch, we soared for a time and then were simply buoyant. I know how that sounds but what other words? She was so casual, too casual with it – I am not sure what I mean by it. I never knew how she could be neutral about something so grave – what is the something? I did not know that love – love? – is not so lumbering for everyone, for some it is light, for Sarah it ebbed and flowed like the ghost sheets, you never knew whether they were alive or simply matter up for disintegration.

When she asked me to leave I just sort of folded my life up and left. I’ve been sleeping here since, she’s starting to call again like always, pretty soon she’ll say come back like always, she thinks I’m living up in the sticks with Aunt Lydia where I grew up, she doesn’t know where Aunt Lydia’s is so she’s sunk about the little visits that come next.

Bassitus overrides my new ringtone.

Between shifts I am in the library reading books with characters that know what love is, I bring their worthy names into work with me and bestow the fish, I’ve recently named the shark upstairs Mrs. Rochester and the basement’s newest residents, a pair of flame angelfish, Jane Eyre and Edward Fairfax.

I never knew which petal from the daisy Sarah might pluck on any given day – would she love me or love me not? – she sucked me in, the little shape of me that is the hole in her life, and spit me out.

Immature love has a two second memory.

Sarah desynchronized my brain but I'm getting my rhythm back. I am redefining my shape. My fish optimism is ripening as is my sense of humour, yesterday I read Oscar and Wilde’s namesake and laughed so high Aunt Lydia wouldn’t have heard me.