Glauque - A fairy tale in green

I came to, floating down river. My mind was as blank as the opaline sky, hanging high above me. I couldn't remember anything, not even my own name. A surge of panic made me want to sit up, made me forget I was lying in water, carried along by a strong current. The perfect balance of flow and buoyancy was disturbed. I flailed my arms and legs, swallowed water and spat and coughed, sputtered in that hopeless way common to all drowning land animals. And still, the river carried me forward. After what seemed like hours, it finally shrugged me off when it reached the shallows, left me lying among the mallows and the rocks covered in slimy moss.

I struggled to my feet, my mangled frame creaking in agony. Through a sodden curtain of hair, I made out a shadowy landmass ahead of me. The sky had long darkened in the fading afternoon and the night promised to be moonless. As I dragged myself forward onto solid ground I could see the vague outlines of a boathouse and a fisherman's hut a few feet away. The door to the hut was open. I fell in and the coarse wooden floor rose to greet me. I sank into the grainy floorboards, rough knots digging into my cheek. I didn't care. My eyes closed on their own and the darkness engulfed me.

A dawn chorus of frogs woke me. Their discordant song filled me with dread but I couldn't have said why. Propped up on my hands, facing the doorway, I let the sickly light bathe my eyes until I was fully awake. Standing up was an ordeal. My joints refused to bend to my will, my muscles had turned to clay. Even though my clothes had dried during the night, they felt heavy and clammy. It took a lot of effort, but by grabbing the edge of a bench set against the nearest wall, I could hoist myself up and examine my surroundings. Everything was old and mouldy. There was lichen growing on the planks of the makeshift walls. Frayed nets hung from a beam on rusty hooks. Boxes full of junk piled up in a corner. The air was stale and humid. The whole place looked forlorn and ancient.

I went outside. The batrachian choir had gone silent. It was soon replaced by a cacophony of birds giving different recitals all at once, which I found reassuring. In the light of day, I could see Fortune had smiled on me the night before. I was standing on a islet close to the left bank of the river. A few steps sideways, I would have ended up in the marsh, with the frogs. Looking down river, in the direction I was headed before the swift current tossed me aside like a rag doll, I saw massive rocks jutting out of the water. As I turned to the right, toward the farther bank, an intense pain exploded in my chest. It was so unbearable, there wasn't enough of me left to scream. I lost consciousness.

This time around, I came to my senses with my memory intact. I still didn't know who I was and how I had ended up in the river, but I remembered everything else. Someone had carried me across the river, got me out of my clothes and tended to my wound. I was flat on my back on a hard surface. When I tried to move, I found that I couldn't. I had no control over my body at all. All I could do was stare unblinkingly at the ceiling through immovable eyeballs. Oddly, I didn't feel any fear. I lay quietly, in a state of equanimous curiosity. I wasn't paralysed and I wasn't tied up. I wasn't in any pain. Something heavy, moist and hot was resting on my chest and it gave off an earthy smell; an old-fashioned poultice, maybe. I could feel my lungs inflating and deflating. I could feel my heart beating. After a while, I drifted away, lulled by the regular rhythm. I fell asleep with my eyes open.

I woke up in a bed, on my side, head on a thin pillow, a threadbare blanket over me. I was aware of the night and the silence. Moonlight, the colour of dirty cream, seeped through the space between the badly-drawn curtains and sketched an impression of my new surroundings in sepia. Without moving my head, I could make out a table and chair by the window; the floor was earthen, the walls rough-hewn stone. As intent as I was on exploring further, I never got the chance. There was someone in the room with me, on the other side of the bed. Alerted by my attempt to sit up, my guardian had gotten up and put a restraining hand on my shoulder. I heard a voice in my mind, toneless and cold. It said sleep. Outside, the silence was broken by a wailing sound, long, mournful, empty. I tumbled into oblivion.

cont.

Staring at myself in the mirror hung above the washbasin, it occurred to me I never knew what I looked like. Even then, my understanding of the properties of reflective surfaces was not enough to accept this stranger as a reflection of me. I was looking at someone I'd never seen before and he was looking back at me, just as perplexed. Only after running my finger down the thick scar along my sternum, and watching the stranger do the same, did my perception shift. The richness and depth of the unseen world beyond the mirror subsided and it revealed itself as a bad imitation, flat and drab. The sense of detachment that had been with me for days left in one rolling wave; in its wake, all the emotions that had been held in check rushed at me and pulled me down into the Abyss.

My nocturnal keeper came in and found me on the floor, a quivering mess, rocking back and forth and whimpering. I was carried back to bed like a child. It was too dark to see but I could tell the arms that cradled me weren't human. Whatever that creature was, it appeared unnaturally cold and I couldn't hear it breathing. Out of nowhere, the thought struck me that if it had any voice at all, it would croak like a toad. It put me down on the musty mattress, tucked the blanket under my armpits. Then it inserted a claw in the hole on the back of my hand. A foggy stream crept up my arm, slowly and deliciously.

You're not ready yet. The sentence appeared in the space inside my head but I knew I wasn't the one who thought it.
Ready for what? I didn't know if I had spoken aloud; my mind was drifting away from my body and it wouldn't be long before I stopped caring about the answer. The creature stayed silent as I became lighter, floating, spinning, rising up into a starless sky. I tightened my will like a bow and let fly one last question:
Who are you?
We are the Naiads it said, as if I should have known.

There was a book on the table. I was certain it hadn't been there before. It was thick, badly cut and had been waterlogged at some point. The look and feel of the binding made me want to retch. It was soft, slippery and damp like fish skin. I let the book fall open randomly. One page was fully taken by a picture inked in black. It showed a group of carefree young girls with long flowing hair, playing in a pond and splashing each other. The caption read 'The Naiads'. On the facing page was the story of Glaucus and Scylla. Glaucus was a fisherman who became immortal after eating a magical herb on a river island where he had cast his nets. As a side effect, he was transformed into a sea god. The nymph Scylla rejected his advances, frightened by his appearance. He went to Circe, the sorceress, in search of a love potion. But Circe, who was in love with him and jealous of the nymph, poisoned the bay where Scylla loved to bathe and turned her into a bloodthirsty monster forced to live in a cave by the river. I turned the page and there were two pictures. I recognised the islet and the rocks; I recognised the ancient fishing village - I had seen it last night while soaring into infinity.

The Naiads decided I was ready. They told me how they had found me lifeless and bleeding on the island; they had had no choice but to revive me with the same herb which had sealed Glaucus' fate. In doing so, they had snatched me from Hades' grasp and had been punished for it, forever doomed to live as monstrous aquatic concoctions of Nature. I knew what awaited me then. My howling bore a hole through the centre of the earth and left me a hollow husk of a man. I shoved my hand forward blindly, begging for the soothing claw. I lost myself in the comforting embrace of my Sisters.

I lie awake at night, watching my innards rot and fall away, to be replaced by unnamed and unnameable organs and glands. I have shed my old skin. A new one is growing, shiny, shimmering scales bathed in a sea-green liquid. I can't sleep on my back anymore; my spiny dorsal fin is in the way. My eyes have started moving to the sides; I can't quite get used to the nictitating membranes, having to close my eyes twice. My nose has vanished, leaving a faint intimation of nostrils etched above my widening rubber-lipped mouth. My fingers and toes have hardened and lengthened and a tough leathery web is holding them together. Soon, I will have to go to the water, but for now I lie awake listening to Glaucus crying for Scylla.


The surgeon and his team had worked on him all night and there were a few close calls where they thought they had lost him. But he pulled through. He would have a scar on his chest where he'd shot himself but he would fully recover. The bullet had gone through without touching any vital organ. Unusual, but not unheard of.