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The Anglerfish

Anglerfish are strange animals. The females are much larger than the males. They have jutted jaws full of needle teeth, and fins that sway like skeletal hands. They have a lantern, an esca, that dangles in front of their ghastly face, luring prey and mates. The males are tiny. They are simple and small. They latch onto the female, parasitic to her, dissolving into her, becoming nothing more than a sperm-producing organ. Without her, he cannot survive. 

***

I scrub the deck on my hands and knees. I am sure we are lost at sea. I can see the outcrop of rock in the distance, and it is the same outcrop of rock I saw yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. We are sailing round in circles. My suffering is infinite, as unquestionable as the tide. 

‘Oy,’ he says. I have forgotten his name. They all merge into one. One grotesque school of bullying sea-wolves; their learnings from one another ceasing at the abuse of women, halting before they actually become masters of the sea.  Maybe if they focused more time on sailing, the ship wouldn’t become aghast with such a lack of chivalry. We also might actually reach our destination. 

But do I really want to reach our destination? I’m not entirely sure I know where we are heading. It could be one of several islands, but then I think, does it really matter? The outcome will be the same. The pirates will hand over these stolen goods to a rich man and we will be on our way. I say we, I’m not sure of my fate. I’m not sure if they see me as a pirate, or a stolen good. 

I see myself as a slave. They took me from my homeland as effortlessly as they looted the gems and jewels. They herded me onto the ship like an animal, rope tied round my wrists, their hands all over me. That was when it started. It has yet to stop. 

By day they call me pathetic. They say I disgust them, and that they hate the sight of me. They force me to clean the floor only for sea spray to tarnish it again. They force me to prepare food despite me being allowed none. They force me to climb the rigging even though there is no need. They stand below me, and watch, my skirt blowing in the wind. 

These jobs are relentless and draining and unforgiving, but I’d live a hundred days to trade one night. Despite my ‘ugly face’, despite my ‘hideous body’, despite the fact they can’t stand laying their eyes on me, at night, when the blackness of the sky shields their eyes, they take their chance to lay everything else on me. They all do it. I’m sure it’s not just one or two. They come to the corner of the cannon deck where I wish I could sleep, and they force themselves on to me. The only woman, on a ship full of men. 

‘We’ve this fish for you to skin,’ he says, dumping a net full on the counter. I reach for the knife, but he gets their first. He holds in against my neck, as near as he can without my skin crying blood. ‘Do it quickly. We’re hungry.’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, and I forgot.’ He drops another net on the counter. ‘Here’s your dinner.’

He removes the netting to reveal the ugliest fish I have ever seen. It is a haggard, bedraggled specimen, and I see some of myself in it. Its skin is fleshy and wrinkled, like a human organ scoured with eyes and a mouth. A strange stem extends from its head, too thin to even be starved limb. I wonder what this is for and then, as if answering my thoughts, it flashes. At the end of the limp rod, there is a light. 

‘Eat me.’

I look at the pirate, but he just stares at me with his usual assumed authority. 

‘Did you hear that?’ I say. 

‘Hear what? The sound of me loading my gun to shoot you if you don’t do as I say? Get to it, woman.’ He leaves then, and I assume I will be left alone as usual, the only noise being the bash of the waves against the ship and muffled footsteps and shouting from the deck above. But then, I hear it again. 

‘Eat me.’

And again, it flashes. An orb of light, a guiding star, maybe, on a tabletop littered with death. 

I hack off a bit of the flesh quickly, to avoid me contemplating my actions. I shove it in my mouth. Even to my hungry stomach, the meat tastes rancid. I force myself to swallow, and scan the room for water. There is none. I see something else in the net bag and grab it without thinking. I bite off the rear end before I identify what is now gracing my palette. It crunches in my mouth but tastes mild, somewhat dulling the revolting taste left my its predecessor. In my hand I hold the head of a seahorse. 

That night I cannot sleep. The hard floor feels firmer than usual and I feel so restless, as if something is waking inside of me. The sea is fairly calm but I toss and I turn and the ship rocks so unrulily that I wonder if it is I that is shaking the ship. As the sun begins the rise and the pirates stir, I feel strangely like I’m floating. I feel here, but not. I feel the floorboards under my feet, rigid as ever, yet I feel like I’m walking on water. 

The pirates emerge, one by one. But they don’t look like they did before. They look smaller, or maybe it is that I have grown. The scale of the world confuses me. They look simpler. Their faces no longer scream anger and malice and greed. Their stance is no longer assertive and dominating; their step simply a means of transporting their helpless bodies, rather than a display of power. They crawl out from their cabins, scuttling onto the deck like mindless insects. They stay a few strides away from me, as if there is some barrier around me which they cannot pass. This is unusual for them. Usually, they have no hesitation in standing as near to me as they please. 

I look to them for instruction, but they look back at me blankly. All of them. Every single man on the ship. I take a step backwards, not for want of personal space – I’ve not had this much in weeks – but to satisfy my awkward, nervous disposition. 

‘Don’t leave,’ one of them says. I look at him, perplexed. 

‘Don’t leave,’ another one echoes. 

‘Don’t leave.’ They are like a gaggle of geese, witlessly squawking. 

‘I … wasn’t going to leave. I mean, I can’t, we’re at sea?’

‘If you leave, we die.’

‘We cannot survive without you.’

‘We rely on you.’

‘We need you.’ 

I stare at them, bemused. I wonder if this is all some cruel joke, but I don’t get the impression they are acting. Their eyes are dull and empty, expressions emotionless and hollow. That kind of visage cannot be faked.

I begin to ponder if maybe I could leave. Would they stand there, dumfounded, if I made a move to redirect the ship? I had picked up enough from my weeks here; I knew better than most how to sail. I consider this, when something even more bizarre happens. 

The stomachs of some of the men begin to swell. 

‘What’s happening?’ I say. 

‘We carry them.’

‘Carry what?’

‘The babies.’

‘What babies?’

‘The babies that we could’ve given to you.’

Their bellies grow larger and larger. They don’t inflate spherically like a ballon, but irregularly. Under their cotton shirts, I see parts of the bulge protrude and poke with more gruffness than a choppy sea.  Then parts of their white cotton shirts begin to bleed red, the men scream and collapse to the floor in pain, clutching their stomachs. I stutter backwards.

‘Don’t leave.’

‘Don’t leave.’

‘Don’t leave.’

‘If you leave, we die.’

One pirate rips off his shirt, and no sooner has he done this than his whole stomach explodes, shooting blood and guts all over the ship and … what are they … sea horses? They wriggle and writhe out of his carcass, skurrying across the deck. At least I probably won’t have to scrub the floor. Around my pirates detonate, their boiling baby bumps blowing, birthing teems of seahorses in a gory, ghastly manner. Amidst my confusion, I feel I may laugh. The ship is so dirty now, and I shall never clean it again. The pirates whose stomachs swell bend over in pain, their eyes full of fear as they see their fate befall their crewmates. Those who appear to have escaped this destiny continue to stare at me vacantly. 

‘Don’t leave,’ they chant. ‘If you leave, we die.’

Soon, these are the only men left standing on the ship. The rest are still here, but their bodies are blistered, broken from their births. I stand at the bow, undecided what to now do. I look at the sea. 

Beneath the water, I see a light, like a star under the water. It reminds me of something. It reminds me of the light that flashed on the fish yesterday. It reminds me of the voice I heard. Then, I hear the voice again. It comes from the sea. 

‘Come and join us,’ it says. ‘Come and join us, and you will never suffer at the hands of men again.’

I lean over the ship, trying to see below the water surface, but the only thing visible in the murky waters is the light. I crave to see more, but I know the light alone gives me all the clarity I need. 

I look back at my crew. I pity them, really. None of them now resemble their former selves, none in mind and most not in body. None of them had seahorses spewing from open stomachs when we set sail. None of them bent over and screamed in pain. None of them drifted round the deck so dopily, or maybe they did, and it was just veiled by the stolen authority. I shrug. I care little for what has happened to them, and even less for what their futures hold. If indeed they die when I go, it isn’t a moment too soon.

 I climb over and stand on the figurehead of the ship. I imagine for those that stand behind me, if they still possess some of their vulgar tendencies, I may look quite fine. A beautiful young woman stood on the figurehead of a ship, hair and dress blowing in the breeze. It makes me want to vomit. The blood and guts and gore don’t turn my stomach, but the way I and all my sisters are perceived does. I hate the picture of me that has been painted. I hate the lack of control I have had over the colours which stained my canvas. I hate this helpless, beautiful woman I am expected to play. 

The star under the water rises above the surface and comes towards me, into me, right into the centre of my chest. I feel the same sensation I had done last night, the feeling that something is awakening inside me, something which has been dormant for too long, something that is angry and ugly and ready to be unleashed. I feel a buzz of excitement. I take a breath, knowing I am about to change. I am barely aware of the background hum of their pleas. It is grey noise to me. I am about to enter an underwater world of colour. 

I open my mouth, exposing rows of lengthening lancet teeth. The jaw opens wider and wider, my teeth outgrowing the rest of my face. I don’t at all feel panicked. Next my eyes grow, fuller and rounder, popping out from my skull, my pupils clouding over with stormy grey haze. I feel my body change then, growing and popping, morphing into something toned and terrifying. The fabric of my dress rips and I am glad to see it flutter helplessly in to the water below. I am aware of bony protrusions breaking through my skin along my spine and skull, them fanning out and webbing with membrane. Finally, a feeler buds from between where my eyebrows once were. On the end of it, a flashing light. A guiding star. 

I am ugly and I am disgusting and I have never felt more free. I do not want to be admired. I do not want to be enslaved. I do not want to be controlled or pitied or even treated chivalrously by men. I want to be me.

Without further hesitation, I jump into the water, and swim down to the deep sea. It is dark there and I can see very little, yet even without my star, I think I would find it brighter than anywhere I had been before. 

And even if not, I shall not complain. I grow more quickly in the dark.