Fish-Man

by Evan Marsco

The fish-man boarded my boat some short time after I’d left Kinloch Bay. Dropping the engine in deeper water and settling in for the long ride back to Mallaig, I glanced to my left to watch Rum recede behind me but instead met his gaze. 

His stare was vacant. Was he frightened? I saw only his walleye and damp, gelatinous skin. I knew cornered animals attack, hopelessly, viciously but I turned away anyway. If he was scared perhaps he’d fall on me now, eat me, or at very least I’d turn back to find him 3 inches from my face breathing hot brine in my face. And yet, something gave me the sense that he was still where he had been before.

Looking back, he seemed less alien. There was now some substance to that damp skin, and intelligence in those marble eyes. I noticed the long slender hands in his lap, the fingers joined by fans of skin at the second knuckle (and I’d been sure those were just broad fin-like things before) and his skin, stretched thin across his whole body but all more human than I’d thought before. I turned again to maintain our course.

Tall cliffs, flanking the Isle of Eigg, rose monstrously to our right. It was eerily still. A pained snorting noise surprised me and, turning, I saw the fish-man (more man now) with his fingers at his throat, his face flushed and helpless. He was trying to breathe through his throat. Looking into those childish eyes I drew long deliberate breaths, trying wordlessly to reassure him. 

Approaching Mallaig I idled the engine. I reached into my bag to throw him a t-shirt and swimming shorts. They looked comically small on him and his damp skin darkened them instantly. But how human he seemed – the gills were a vague scar, his eyes were warmer, and grateful. Pulling beside the pontoon, I suppose we looked like two ragged West Coast fishermen, because the people watching us were unconcerned when to my surprise he hopped from the boat, deftly cleated the bowline and dived effortlessly into the Saturday crowd. I don’t think I ever saw him again.