She lays face up at the bottom of the lake, rock in the arch of her back, gritty like sand, rubbing raw the soft skin there, like carpet. Her skin half submerged in the bottom mud, cool, already breaking out into bumps of warmth. She knew if she were to grab a fist full of the mud and surface, it would smell like shit and her palm and fingers and nails would smell like musty shit even though she would scrub them red with Dial, but down here, it is aged and ancient and comforting to be surrounded by something so sure.
Looking up, the water is black-green. Gardens of algae and sunlight that doesn’t shine this far down. But if the algae happens to clear, she can look up at the few inches of illuminated water, the underbelly of the surface where the wind skips waves and like thousands of shards of glass, reflects the sunlight so that even the egret cannot fly too close, blinded by it’s intensity.
Her attention is drawn to a rope of algae grabbing her ankle, wrapping upward around her calf to lick her inner thigh. She is not startled thinking it a bluegill or leech. She knows the feel of quick scales and the brush of sharp fins against her skin, knows you can never feel the leeches, only see them shrivel to half their size under the flame of a match, the single drop of your blood; they smell like shitty mud as they burn.
She wriggles her body deeper into the mud. She finds that if she stretches the fingers of her left hand, she can feel the artificial smoothness of a possible beer can, half submerged itself, the sharpness of the opening and the flap of metal for the pull-tab. They just dragged the lake last fall, renewing the supply of sturgeon and gar. If she were to scoot along the entire mud bottom, she would find three and a half old truck tires, roughly a dozen cans, two dozen bottles, a few shoes, a couple rings, a bowling ball. They just dragged the lake last fall, and the bluegill already outnumber both sturgeon and gar combined.
The hair at the right side of her head flutters slightly, catching the vibrations of a hunting fish near by. One quick pop, the snap of his jaw. That is how you hear down here. She remembers at one time wishing she could transfer this ________ to the surface with her. She knew, however, with her patience, that even the pulsing of another human rustling the air around her would aggravate. Maybe like high pitched squeals, the vibrations would flatten her, she would still cover ears with palms, make the most disgusted face, maybe even rustle back.
In the fish world, she would nibble on the offender’s tail fin, maybe pull off the scales and if she won, the offender would never come near her. In the fish world, everyone important was always swimming about the same basin of water, unless they happened to get washed down the spillway or caught by a dock fisherman. And in the fish world, you never had to surface.
Naomi wriggles her whole body; both arms, both legs, her hips and stomach and chest, shaking herself out of the mud around her, the water now inky, yet she always knows the way up.
Just before the top of her head breaks surface, the entire left side of her body receives the vibration of a swift water movement. The vibrations are so intense, they resonate throughout her core, sending the message to her brain to tense up and grip the long spear at her side. She takes a deep breath and slowly lets her face back down into the water. Completely submerged once again, she closes her eyes to listen with her skin. Her right big toe picks up the attack first. She allows the foot to dangle, like a lure, till the big fish is so close, jaws wide, he can’t turn back. Just before the snap of his teeth, she pulls her legs up against her chest, sending her body into a spin and spiral downward and with spear at the ready, she sinks it deep into the spiny back of the fish.
Or so she thinks. Its scales are like armor and she must pull them apart to reach the soft flesh beneath, she must simultaneously hammer the spear further and further in while remaining attached to the back of the fish. She is not panicked – she always wins – and her confidence is what makes her successful.
The fish has dragged her deeper into the inky black of the lake. She must trust only what her hands and feet feel. The fish, realizing it’s mistake, veers sharply, makes full turnabouts in an alarmed scramble to escape her and the spear, yet she remains grounded. If she were to let go now, the fish would forget her spear and charge after her once more.
She recognizes victory as she fingers the new gash beneath tough scales. The water around her hands turns warm. The algae reflects red. She knows to leave now, that the other mutant fish of the lake will smell the blood and finish off her attacker.
Still underwater, she makes for the shoreline. Still underwater, somehow, she knows the way up and she knows the way to land. Large, dark shadows slice past her in the murky light, igniting her skin and she swims faster even though they aren’t after her, they are after the blood in the water.
Finally, her hands feel the moss of rocks and the water is a welcoming green. The adrenaline of survival makes each step sure on each of the rocks that lead her to land. She is alive. Her body collapses beside her clothing and pack on the dirt of the shore as she feels her rib cage expand and fold, expand and fold. She scraps her feet into the dirt, loving the land with her touch. Fingertips find her face, rubbing deep the indents of her eye cavities, then her forehead, her cheeks. Everything accounted for.
She had fought the big fish of the lake before. She had searched other lakes and found similar mutations among the fish there. About the fourth or fifth attack, she had killed the fish and brought it to shore, bringing the beast out of the water to have a better look and to feast on the surplus of meat.
The fish had obviously been a gar at one point. Its nose was still long and thin, only bigger to accommodate the shear size of its teeth. Its entire being was larger, more primitive, too large for the small lake it inhabited. The scales were wider and thicker, the fins sharper with more points to rip flesh. And its eye was the size of her palm, milky white like a frying eye with a clear black yolk in the center. It looked up at her and told her what this world was coming to.
The nuclear residue had caused the green clouds to periodically drizzle ‘rain’. This ‘green’ isn’t a good green, a fresh grass green, it’s more like a vomit green, a war gas green. And the rain isn’t what rain had once been. It slides greasy down skin to gather in puddles that reflect the light in purple rainbows like oil slicks. The rain touches everything- plants, animals, water sources, what humans remain. It gets into the roots of hair and plants and now everything grows faded. There was no choice but to drink it and it got into bloodstreams and neurons. The most obvious effects were the fish, being exposed to a higher concentration of the rain with no relief. Every now and then, she would spy a dog staring at her as it walked away, a third eye growing out the back of its head or a rat the size of a cat, bearing a gimp leg, but this was only occasionally. She has yet to see another human.
She doesn’t know the in-depth specifics of the mutations, only that which she observes and ponders, but she does know that it changed her as well. Maybe not quite like the fish or the dog or the cat, but she knows. She knows because of the length of time she can hold her breath. She knows because the smell of the lake is stronger, more acidic, more black than green anymore, yet she can still submerge herself in it. She has changed; that is certain.
The only way to pause the changing is to remember. So she dives into the lake once surrounded by modest cabins, one belonging to her grandparents. As a child, she had dove here, fished for bluegill, pulled leeches from her feet, lit fireworks for her birthday, all in the presence of family. Diving helps her block out the now and remember.
It hadn’t even been a year since the nuke, but she was already starting to forget names and faces and voices. Including her own. A few days back, while raiding a house for supplies, she had come across a full-length mirror in what must have been a bedroom, which she stalled to examine. Almost a year since without looking at herself. Puddles and lake surfaces didn’t exactly count. They hadn’t shown her what that mirror could.
Quickly, she assessed the dirt, the many rips and tears in her shirt and pants, the way the skin of her face seemed to stretch with some difficulty over the cheekbones. Her limbs were covered in fresh scratches, new scars. She had forgotten about the slash across the left side of her jaw line. On a particularly desperate day, having gone a few without much to eat, she had rigged a snare, trapping a rather gamey rooster. In her haste, she made the mistake of untying the thing before the kill and it had clipped her with his massive spur. She had snapped his neck, mixed their blood in the dirt.
Not only did her skin seem to be shrinking over her bones, but it was more sallow, possibly just the film over the glass, but she doubted it. However, the attribute that shocked her most, was her eyes. She could barely remember what her face was supposed to look like, but she knew her eyes had grown wider, and not just the pupils, but the whites- now more of a dull grey- and the irises- once a brilliant blue color, were now a dull, dirt brown, like everything else surrounding her. The sight of her blue eyes turned to mud caused them to sting and almost tear, but she forced herself from the mirror to continue her raid.
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