Trigger warning: End of Life, suicide

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Becca threw herself out the door. Her purse knocked over the little table that had once been artfully placed by the door, but now only an empty rum bottle and pile of crumpled envelopes slipped to the floor. She snagged the new mail out of the vintage letterbox and hurried to her faded Corolla running on fumes and prayers. The speed limit was a suggestion and she pulled into the empty parking lot at 10:08pm. 

She took a second to close her eyes and breath—Breathe in. Breathe out—to collect herself, shoved the small pile of letters into her denim purse and slammed the car door. She grumbled as she trekked across the dark parking lot trying to arrange herself and pull up the app on her phone to clock in.

Shadows stretched around her as if reaching to swallow her as she got closer to the large building. Once she was scared of the fact they made her park in the “designated employee parking” a hundred miles from the entrance even though the Aquarium had seen off its last guest a solid three hours before she arrived for her shift. But nooo… She might inconvenience a guest. But now she was no longer afraid of long walks alone in a dark parking lot. I wish a motherfucker would. 

She snapped the mandatory picture of herself—clearly not inside the building—and prayed that HR didn’t actually look at these things as she submitted her punch. There. 10:09. Not technically considered late.

She smashed in the six digit code to get into the building and slipped through the glass door. Flinging her purse onto the front desk and she collapsed into the black office chair in the dark. The blue glow from the monitor was more than enough light.

Her hands shook as she pulled the letters from her purse and flipped through them. Electric bill into the garbage. Garbage bill into the garbage. Water bill into the garbage. Children’s Hospital…

She opened the too thin letter. Cursing, she unfolded the paper with trembling fingers and her eyes slid to the first sentence “We regret…”

She left the letter on the floor office chair spinning mournfully as she jammed her thumb into the elevator call button to the second floor.

The doors dinged opened onto a cheerful scene of happy turtles and friendly sharks painted on the walls and pointing to various exhibits. She passed aquarium after aquarium filled with fish and blacklights as she followed the signs to the octopus exhibit and the small supply closet tucked out of sight.

She paused at the large octopus tank like a giant cylinder reaching up to the catwalk over the ceiling. She tenderly splayed  her still shaking her fingers across the glass. Waiting. She closed her eyes. Breath in. Breathe out. Trying to focus on the feeling the chill of the smooth glass beneath her hand. A tiny tear trailed down her cheek smearing a wet trail through the makeup she had hurriedly pushed onto her face in an attempt to hide the hollowness of hope. All people suffer two deaths. And she was already a month since dead.

When she opened her eyes he was there, five orangish-purple tentacles full of suckers pressed over her hand. He was a two year old pacific octopus and the sign in front of his tank said that he’s smaller at twelve pounds than he should be for his age, likely due to losing most of his limbs in a fishing net tragedy. 

“Hi, Theseus,” Becca whispered. She didn’t know if he could hear her, it was doubtful, but she looked into his eyes and it seemed like he understood enough. Her heart was cracking and even the octopus could see.

“They denied my appeal.” Theseus shifted his body so that his head was closer to hers, eyes on a level.  She held his intelligent eyes and the memory crashed over her like a train, “mommy, I wanna be an octopus when I grow up.” Her breath piled-up in her chest and she pressed the rest of her body against the glass to keep herself from doubling over with pain. It was just a year ago she stood here with Emma. “Whys he got no friends, mommy?”

“He’s gonna take her off life support and there’s nothing I can do about it.” She closed her eyes. Breath in. Breath out. 

Theseus thumped a tentacle against the glass and she lifted her eyes in surprise. The tip of one tentacle wrapped around something thin and dark. Her eyes narrowed trying to make out the object he held but the water was dark and slightly murky. “What is that?” 

Theseus shifted his body again and Becca jumped when the object cracked against the tank.

It was a fork. A regular metal fork. “Where did you get that?”

His head cocked like a dog trying to figure out what you said.

Becca nodded and stiffened her posture and an instinct inside her groggily opened its eyes. “I see you have a thingamabob. I’m sorry but I have to tell your handlers.” She peered closely, a small hair line crack was just beginning to form where the fork struck the wall of the tank. It’s not actually glass, it’s made of a thick acrylic that was impossible for a little octopus to break. But still…

“Ok, I’ll be back buddy.” She forced a watery smile into place and held it there as she walked slowly into the supply room and sent a quick email to his handler. 

She filled the yellow mop bucket and sang a familiar song with the modified lyrics she’d been working on for weeks. The original song was intended to be  full of hope and wonder, and an indomitable love for life. Becca’s version had the words, the rhythm, but sang in a register just too low, just too slow.

“Look at this world, doesn’t it reek?

Wouldn’t you think that we should just flee?

Wouldn’t you think I’m the one, the one whos lost everyone?”

She hummed the rest of that bit not happy with any of the lyrics she’d tried yet.

“I wanna be where the fishes are. I wanna see, wanna see ‘em swimming,

Flappin’ around on those,… what do you call them? …oh fins.

Dancing on your feet don’t get you too far.”

She hummed more then picked up, “wish I could be part of their world.”

The mop plunged into the bucket and she wheeled it into the elevator for the third floor paying little attention to the water that sploshed onto the tiles in her wake.

She mechanically glided the mop across the floor. Left. Right. Swish. Swash.

Down the hall. Around the corner.

Down the hall. Around the corner. 

Down the hall. Around the corner. 

Down the…

Becca looked up, eyes wide, more aware of her surroundings than she’d been for  weeks. The wet threadbare brown carpet she was standing was wholly unfamiliar to her and sucked incongruently at her shoes as she backed up. 

She did what anyone would do. She dropped the mop and abandoned the bucket as she retraced her steps around the corner and down the hall. No aquariums lined the walls where she walked. Wasn’t she supposed to be in the corner with all the frogs?  She stopped at a bright red sea horse half buried in the wall. She poked it. It squelched and gave way to her finger releasing water like a soggy sponge. But the water gushed as if from a faucet—under pressure and unending.

After three turns she rounded a corner to find a lonely mop and yellow bucket shining as if under a spotlight. What the actual fuck? Her head throbbed with a womp womp womp in her ears and she leaned against a wall and discovered it was slick beneath her hand.

Exhausted.

Confused.

She wiped her lips with a quivering hand and closed her eyes. Breath in. Breath out.

When her eyelids lifted she stood on a tile floor surrounded by dry blue walls and the various aquariums of frogs and fish of the Mundo Maya exhibit exactly how it should have been. The hogfish blubbled at her questioningly. Becca rubbed her palms, damp with sweat, into her eyes then looked at the time on her phone. 11:11. Make a wish.

Sighing. Shaking. She collected her mop and bucket and rode back down to the second floor. Theseus was still there, playing with his fork and using the tines to dig lines in the sand like a zen garden. “At least one of us is Zen.” Her throat felt raw and scratchy. Like she had just spent an hour screaming.

The octopus swam to the tank wall and latched himself in front of her face. “Yeah. Let me go make some coffee then we can sit here and have a break, okay?”

Theseus didn’t nod. Octopus don’t do that. But he did seem to make a small gesture with one of his tentacles as if saying, “well go on then. Hurry up.”

Becca yawned as she entered the break room and the overhead lights flickered on. She opened the cabinet for her favorite mug but inside the cabinet was a curtain of small bubbles floating upward as if coming from an aerator. 

She closed the door and tried to get her obviously exhausted brain to catch up.

She opened the cabinet again to find… bubbles. Still bubbles. More bubbles than before like the cabinet was saving them just for her. They billowed into her face and she felt a cool pop where they brushed her skin.

She blinked and opened the neighboring cabinet and was nearly relieved to find that it was not bubbles. Instead a diorama, like the ones she used to make for book reports when she was in school. Tiny starfish sat around a yellow kitchen table with tiny plates of what appeared to be pot roast and potatoes. The smallest one waved cheerfully up at her as she dumbly closed the door.

 Pale, Becca collapsed into the nearest plastic chair and buried her face in her hands. “I’m losing it. I’m cracked. Maybe he was right.”

“Ee dowbt hee uas rayt.”

Becca jerked her head up and stared at the door as an orangish-purple octopus floated into the room. Her eyes slid to the cabinets, one still billowing bubbles like a smokestack.

“Wh–what?” she asked…the octopus(?)

“Ee—dowbt—hee—uas—rayt,” it repeated slowly.

Becca… giggled—I mean really, there are only so many options when an octopus talks to you—It sounds like the octopus said ‘I doubt he was right.’ There was an octopus in the break room talking to her. Emma’s not going to… No. Becca stopped giggling instantly and glared at the octopus as if it was specifically his fault. “Theseus?” 

“Yess, Theseus,” he said. 

“Um. Is this where you got the fork?”

“Noh. Ee took de pork prom de deever’s loonch.”

Theseus climbed into the chair across from her. His accent was absolutely bizarre. Like a heavy greek accent but with a weird staccato rhythm and an archaic quality that made him sound like he was verbally making typos.

“You stole the fork from the diver?”

He stretched a tentacle to the cabinet, pushed past the bubbles and deftly positioned her favorite mug under the kurege to brew her pod of toasted hazelnut coffee.

“ Keep up, girl. Heee’s a clam brayned fowl.” The more he talked the easier she found it to understand. Which was good because her brain was clearly having a hard time processing things in general at the moment.

And they shared a cup of coffee in the break room. Becca the human and an octopus. She drank black coffee from a hand painted mug. Theseus the octopus dipped a sucker in the hot liquid and flashed an angry red in distaste. He made a blark and declared, “Beetar bean juice.”

They sat in the plastic chairs at the plastic table for hours. She should have been mopping. Should have been dusting. Should have been cleaning the glass fronts to all the aquariums. But what she really should be doing…

The round militant clock  hung on the wall and marked every second you lost. 11:11. Make a wish.

“Theseus? Am I okay?” Becca finally asked. She fingered the ridges of the small fingerprint that was accidentally pressed into the clay of the handle before it was fired.

“Yess, girl. You’re fine. Better than fine.”

A tear leaked from Becca’s broken face. “I don’t think I’m fine,” she confessed.

The tip of  a tentacle gently wiped the tear away. “Sometimes we have to reinvent ourselves to protect the ones we love.”

“It hurts.”

“Yess,” Theseus hissed gently, “change does hurt. Come, girl. I will show you.”

What are you supposed to do when a talking octopus tells you to follow him? On unsteady legs Becca followed.

He led her down the hall and through a forest of kelp. Around the corner and over a reef. The air thickened and it soon felt like she was pushing through gelatin, but Theseus seemed to move easily. On a whim, she pushed off the ground and swept the arms out exactly like she was swimming and she smoothly lifted off the tile floor. She took a deep breath and found she could breathe.

“Where are we going?” she finally asked.

Instead of answering, Theseus led her into a narrow shaft packed with bubbles. She hesitated. 

“You want me to go in there?”

Theseus turned, the bubbles flowing around him. “Yess.”

The shaft looked like it would only be a couple of inches wider than her hips on each side. She crept closer and looked up and down. The shaft bubbles disappeared into darkness in both directions.

Becca swallowed hard and shrugged. She’s come this far after all. They entered the shaft and up they went.

Bubbles brushed against her arms leaving goose-bumps. The light vanished. She was weightless. Timeless. A weird collection of atoms who came together one day and started calling themselves Becca. In this dark shaft she became sea foam. What worries? What stress? She was finally at peace.

And then there was light. A soft glow from a familiar yellow lamp shaped like a round and happy fish. The carpet beneath her feet was dry. The room was warm. A red headed mermaid smiled at her from several posters on the wall and toys on the floor. She knew where she was, but it was impossible.

She felt at her body. Solid and dry. Wearing her old broken-in jeans with the slight fraying on the inner thighs. And her dirty work crocs—Emma had decorated them with starfish stickers that have long since faded.

“Theseus? Why are we in here?”

But the octopus wasn’t there.

Then she was there. A young girl in mismatched pajamas bounced into the room and took a flying leap onto the bed. “Ok mommy, I brushed my teeth,” she trilled.

Becca shook her head in denial. This was the night six weeks ago when she read Emma that story about a fish looking for friends. Emma became very sad about the octopus named “Thesuss” and made her swear to always be his friend. She promised.

Becca stood there. Waiting. Starring. Was another version of herself going to come in and tuck Emma in and read that book? But no. Emma was looking directly at  her.

A sob and a scream tried to part her lips at once and she choked. “Emma?”

 She laughed. Laughed. “Don’t be weird, mommy.”

Air rushed into Becc’s lungs much too fast. Too fast. She couldn’t… She needed to… But she refused. She would not close her eyes even for a second

 Becca all but fell on top of the girl. Feeling her face. Looking into her midnight eyes. She felt real. Just as real and dry and solid as she herself was.

Emma giggled. “Mommy, stop it. You’re being silly.”

Becca sat up, a smile from ear to ear that she didn’t have to force. This has to be real. She slipped her phone into her hands. It was 11:11. She flipped to the messages app to be sure. The last message from four days ago sent her heart crashing.

Becca thought quickly. Or didn’t think at all. It’s hard to say. She did what anyone would do. “Okay,” she said to Emma, “we’re going to go on a little night-venture. So let’s get your shoes on.”

“Yay.” Emma jumped out of bed and scrambled for her little pink and blue crocs. “Adventure mode? Or normal mode?”

“Umm, let’s do adventure mode.”

“Yay!” Emma positioned the strap behind her heel.

“Emma…” a man warned from far off, “you better be in bed.”

Emma’s bright face was betrayed by a yawn and she asked thickly, “is daddy coming too?”

“No, baby.” Becca took Emma’s small hand into hers, calloused by years of effort to provide a good life. She savored the feeling.

“Daddy never does anything fun with us,” she grumbled as Becca led her to—where did she come in? oh—the wall next to the closet.

Becca ran her hands all over the wall not really knowing what she was looking for but sure it was here somewhere. It had to be. A soft spot back into the water. Somewhere.

Emma whispered, “What are we doing?” as she slipped her hand from Becca’s and also began to run her little hands over the wall.

Becca’s finger slipped into a soft spot in the wall about waist high and a bubble popped out. Emma giggled in delight and Becca shoved as many fingers that would fit in that soft spot and tried to pry it wider, grunting with the effort.

“Emma,” the male voice warned again from a distance, “don’t make me come in there.”

Emma pressed herself against Becca’s legs and Becca clenched her teeth, desperately working faster. Her fingers began to lock up and ache. A nail broke and she was sure she was bleeding. She accidentally bumped into a small end table knocking over the Flounder lamp and they both heard heavy footsteps getting louder. Was that the whisper of a belt? 

Panicking, she took Emma’s hand and set it against the soft spot in the wall that was now about the size of a small window. They were both small in stature. They could both fit if they tried. She lifted Emma into her arms and together they disappeared by the time a tall man silhouetted the door frame.

The water was freezing. Becca gasped. In her arms Emma also gasped but with wide-eyed wonder. She clung tightly to Becca’s neck. Becca savored the moment and they floated suspended in time and emotion. Slowly the freezing water restored Becca’s ability to move and she began to swim.

Instead of the World Aquarium building but just filled with water like before, they were surrounded by colorful reefs in pinks and purples and greens. Small golden fish darted this way and that. Emma giggled and finally pushed away from Becca who instantly felt her loss but oh that laughter was everything. It was every beautiful sound in the spring. Every cozy feeling in autumn.

“Look mommy, I have a tail.” Emma flapped a flowing pink tail that was reminiscent of a Betta fish tail. “Ooo, look at yours. It’s so pretty.”

Becca looked down. She also had a tail that almost looked like a Betta fish but much tighter at the hips and was black bleeding into a burnt orange at the tips.

Emma darted off giggling wildly and Becca followed. They were not in the Great Barrier Reef like Becca had thought at first but the landscape changed and sometimes suddenly. Sometimes they were in dark blue waters surrounded by fish and coral as far as the eye could see, then they were in a carpeted and wall-papered hallway with shining gold trim and an unnatural lack of furniture and black spots where windows might be. Becca liked these settings the least. But Emma swam on and Becca tried to still her racing heart. Then they found themselves swimming alongside a pod of dolphins as they danced around a broken statue.

They went to school with angel fishes. Volleyball with Theseus. Hide and seek with otters. Tea party with sharks—which were really quite nice. Found a clown fish. And hugged a manatee named Frank. 

They ate seaweed sandwiches. Napped on an elaborate four-posture bed nestled among the anemones. Expanded Theseus’ dinglehopper collection. And tried to herd bubbles for a sea horse. Everything was perfect.

Fade to black. Close the curtains. THE END 

All good things must come to a close. All people suffer two deaths—the death of purpose, of agency, of interaction. So while Becca was singing:

“I wanna be where the fishes are. I wanna see, wanna see ‘em swimming,

Flapping around on those… what do you call them? …oh fins.

Dancin’ on your feet don’t get you too far.”

Taxes aren’t real when you live past the bar

Wandering free in the… what’s that word again? Deeeep.

Down where they swim, down where they glide

Down where they don’t spend all day waiting to die

Floating so free, wish I could be

Part of their world.”

Emma was asking, “Mommy, am I gonna get to go back to school? Play with my people friends? See daddy?”

Becca did… what anyone might do. But inside she couldn’t breathe. She pulled her phone from her pocket and checked the time. 11:11 Make a wish. 

She took Emma by the hand and guided her back. Back through the anemones. Back through the dolphins. Back through the hallway with no window. Back through it all.

Back to the shaft with the bubbles. Theseus was there. A plastic chair from the break room floated by like debris and Frank the manatee was using the mop bucket like a purse.

Becca squeezed Emma’s little hand. “I don’t want this to end. Weren’t we having so much fun?”

Emma smiled. “Of course, silly. We can come back. Right?”

But Becca knew before Theseus began to wrap himself around her. “I think only one of us can leave, baby.”

Emma scrunched up her face. “But I don’t want to leave you!”

Becca forced that old watery smile onto her lips. “It’s going to be okay. Just remember… adventure mode. Okay?” Becca gave Emma one final hug and wished it could last forever. The mournful whale songs were pleasantly matching her mood as she so,so, gently pushed Emma into the bubble shaft and watched her baby fall upward with a smile still plastered on her mouth as Theseus continued to wrap her like a vice. 

Epilogue

Paul the EMT started his night by pulling a soggy female body from the octopus tank at the World Aquarium. If he didn’t know any better he would think that the resident octopus was vainly trying to pull her out of his water and right up to the edge of the opening where she had cut through to enter the tank. It was pretty easy—albeit completely terrifying—to reach in and grab her with the help of the fire boys. He had to try to gently fight off the octopus that seemed hell bent on clinging to the body. Arguing with sea creatures, as a rule, was nowhere near his bingo card.

“Derrick! Bring the AED!” he shouted as he laid the woman on the floor.

Derrick appeared at his elbow as he started compressions. “How long was she in the water?”

Paul rolled his eyes and was spared the responsibility of answering by the firemen who arrived on scene with them and helped Paul fish her from the tank. “Alarms went off at 11:11 and it’s currently… 11:27,” David, one of the firefighter, reported. “Good thing she was so close to where she went in or it would have been a pain to get her ass out.”

Paul grunted in agreement as he continued chest compressions and Derrick cut her shirt to place the AED pads.

“So she was immersed for about fifteen minutes but who knows how long she was actively drowning,” Derrick said to the third EMT who appeared with the stretcher. He answered with a shrug.

Angelic choir music began to play and all four men briefly paused to blink at each other. Usually there’s no fanfare when a victim dies. Paul recovered first and continued his compressions while watching the AED monitor which did thankfully show some signs of faint electrical activity.

“Oh, it’s a phone.” David laughed. He picked it up from the nearby table and noted the bolt cutters and box knife.

“Who is it?” Derrick asked.

David frowned. “Caller ID says Children’s hospital.”

“I don’t know man, answer it. Maybe they can tell us who this lady is,” Derrick said.

Paul grunted in agreement.

David accepted the call. “Hello?” He walked away, leaving the EMTs to hopefully save a life.

“Uh, oh, hello,” a woman said. “I’m looking for Rebecca Marrow.”

“Uhh,” David said.

 “This is the social worker at Children’s Hospital,” she said as if he was supposed to know what to do about it.

David frowned and glanced at the limp body three EMTs were currently transferring to a stretcher. “Rebecca can’t come to the phone right now.” A weight settled heavily in his bones.

“Oh, she’ll want to talk to me no matter what she’s doing. Tell her I have great news.”

David sighed heavily. Only time would tell.