See the end of the chapter for more notes. So, yes. He knows merfolk exist ed , once upon a time. But after centuries of silence from beneath the waves, he—like everyone else—had accepted their disappearance alongside so many other mythical species.
Instead, he reaches blindly along the table towards his left, tapping and waving to get the attention of his fellow engineer, a surly blonde wearing headphones with the music so loud Denki can almost make out the words. Come look. Thankfully, Bakugou saves him the potential embarrassment by grumbling and swinging his chair closer. They peer at the shape together. But now, Denki holds his breath and maneuvers the rover once again to the view that had his heart hammering in his chest and hopes caught in his throat; the beams slide upward from the tail across a very humanoid torso.
Bakugou slides into place, eyebrows knitted and hands expertly working the controls. The rover strafes to the side, pivoting around the unmoving creature. As it shifts, the beam tracks down an honest-to-gods arm that ends in five taloned digits, lax and half-curled where it rests just inches from the camera.
In lieu of trying to find the right words to fit this unforeseeable circumstance, he turns his severe stare to Denki. Squawks nonstop during mess. Used to have a radio show? Bakugou grunts in acknowledgement, and then smacks the net deployment button.
Denki hauls his legs around with shaky hands, careful not to bash the mechanisms of his knee and calf braces against the edge of the desk. He shoves himself to his feet, taking a moment to find his balance. On the screen, the merman has yet to move despite the slow reeling-in of the net. The man has never bothered to introduce himself.
Or even a fan of the ocean at all. Denki shifts more weight onto his cane with a wince and a soft, sharp inhale. The black-haired man glances over at him at that, and Denki ducks his head instinctively for interrupting his solemn contemplation. But instead of chastising him, the guy slinks over to the far wall to fetch one of the janky plastic folding chairs.
Denki nods gratefully and takes the seat. The aching falls away almost entirely and he sighs, not for the first time wishing it would stay that way.
Seven years of healing and therapy could only do so much to remedy one brainless teenage error in judgment. He glances up to see both sets of eyes trained on him. The two look away from him and at each other so simultaneously that it raises the hair on his arms. The man flashes another smile at him, this time with teeth. Denki starts to rise from his chair, preparing to wrangle the device into position, but Yamada waves him back down and takes over the task. Get it filled from the external pumps.
Do you understand? The pain is a distant thought as Denki lurches from the room, leaving the pair to their agitated whispering. Footsteps thunder down the hall from the opposite direction and Denki nearly runs headfirst into Bakugou. Bakugou nods wordlessly and grabs it out of his hand, easily beating Denki to the door and swinging it open. The room beyond at first looks like a storage room, with all manner of boxes and doodads piled about carelessly, but the truck-sized glass enclosure against the back wall is impossible to miss.
One jarring pipe-squeak later, seawater slams into the interior glass wall, brown-green and frothing. Denki scrambles out of the way and watches in mute awe as the man wrangles the upper half of a near-motionless form through the doorway, followed by Yamada who is barely keeping a grip on a long, thick tail.
Then, Yamada falters on the second-to-top step and accidentally pinches a pelvic fin against the metal railing—. And the merman explodes into movement, letting out an ear-piercing shriek. He writhes against his poor handlers, throwing what must be hundreds of pounds of scale and muscle back and forth. Denki can only watch and call out a warning as Bakugou scrambles up the steps to help, and the next moment a railing clatters noisily to the ground, and—.
When he looks back, Aizawa is leaned half into the tank, one hand tangled in a cloudy mane of purple hair which he holds against the glass just under the surface. Bakugou is standing on the opposite side, shoulders hunched and covering one of them with a hand.
Bleed out for all I care! Is everything alright in there? Denki looks to Yamada for guidance, who looks at Aizawa, who drops his head in defeat. To me, the fish represents a society unaware of the passing of this man from one realm to the other, choosing to just pass by as the fish has its own problems to contend with. It finds a way to accompany us on our journey and then is just as content to see us on our way out. One person sinks to the depths of the deep and not a care is exerted, but for the man wishing he could find his way back to the surface where the clouds fly overhead.
Expect nothing when you die, but pursue everything while you live. You must accomplish all before you sink deep down, as he says, to the weedy disarray of the bottom. Email This BlogThis! Subscribe to: Posts Atom.
The Art Of Drowning. Print friendly version. E-mail this poem to a friend. Send this poem as eCard. Add this poem to MyPoemList.
Add this poet to MyPoetList. I wonder how it all got started, this business about seeing your life flash before your eyes while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence, could startle time into such compression, crushing decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds. After falling off a steamship or being swept away in a rush of floodwaters, wouldn't you hope for a more leisurely review, an invisible hand turning the pages of an album of photographs- you up on a pony or blowing out candles in a conic hat.
How about a short animated film, a slide presentation? Your life expressed in an essay, or in one model photograph?
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