Sarah and Mark sat inside the city aquarium building. There were lots of small fish that weaved in and out of false coral with ease.
“I want to take a lot of drugs and lose the ability to speak coherently and then reform and become a folk singer and sing incoherent songs about requited love and greenery and hitchhiking in California,” said Mark.
“Are you having an existential crisis?” asked Sarah with a small degree of concern. “When people talk optimistically about planning to take near-lethal amounts of drugs, that is supposed to be an existential crisis warning sign. I learnt that in Existential Crisis Prevention class for my Paramedics course.”
“I want to spend all my time in fashionably unpopular wine bars drinking wine, writing and drawing in Moleskine notebooks, wearing black turtleneck jumpers, talking seriously about art and literature, not smiling, smoking cigarettes, ignoring the existence of ‘Third World’ countries, speaking with a carefully developed accent, listening to John Coltrane on CD, and deliberately thinking off-kilter thoughts about talking houseplants in order to self-induce a sense of paranoia in order to trigger schizophrenia to feed my art and seem more radical and ‘out-of-left-field’.”
“Isn’t it funny how fish never run into one another? Fish and birds amaze me like that.”
“I want to be a lawyer and have a lot of professional friends and a nice house and go to regular black-tie events so that I have no time remaining to question my life.”
“What if a fish tried to drive a car? If there was a car specifically made for a fish, that is. The fish could steer by flapping around in a certain way and accelerate by opening its mouth wider. I think that such a fish would be a better driver than I am.”
“I feel worthless,” said Mark. “I have no direction in my life.”
Sarah and Mark walked over to watch the dolphins.
The dolphins did a variety of tricks. They jumped high into the air and did flips and swam in formation, like fighter jets. People were able to have their photographs taken with the dolphins.
“Let me take your photo and then you can take mine,” said Sarah.
“Okay.”
One of the dolphins swam up and the trainer told Mark to place one hand very gently on the bit of skin in front of the dolphin’s fin.
“Look at the dolphin,” shouted Sarah.
Mark looked at the dolphin. The dolphin was extremely beautiful. Mark couldn’t help but smile, thinking that the universe must be at least partially good if it allows such beautiful things to in it. The dolphin nuzzled against Mark’s hand with a great power.
“I am better than you,” said the dolphin. “I have direction. I have a wide variety of skills and interests and hobbies.”
“Fuck you,” said Mark.
“Smile at the dolphin, I am taking the photograph,” said Sarah. Then they switched and Mark took Sarah’s photograph with the dolphin.
“Let’s go to the harbour now,” said Mark.
They drove to the harbour which was only about five minutes away, and which had a few large shipping boats docked in it. They both bought milkshakes from the kiosk. The water inside the harbour was dirty and oily.
“Dolphins used to live here, but now it’s too extremely polluted for them to live here,” said Mark.
“A crying shame,” said Sarah.
“I am seriously thinking about throwing my paper cup into the harbour,” said Mark. “I think that I will do it. I will become that sort of person.”
2 comments:
I like this story better then "they saved their marriage". i feel stupid making such a blatantly comparative judgement...but i do like it better. i think its easier to feel things reading this story. re: comment you left on my blog, i think if you took lots and lots of photos of animals or flowers or buildings or anything they look more and more interesting because the more you look at something the more you see the smallest variances and patterns within it. but then maybe you lose perspective of the bigger picture. but i kind of like the idea that i can never fully grasp the whole world at once. minolta SR T100, from market bazaar, just had to get a battery for the light meter and was set.
sometimes rating things is the only way to give people a direction, even if the rating is sort of arbitrary. like if i wrote a whole lot of stuff and gave it somebody and they said, "i like it all" or "i hate it all" but didn't tell me anything specific, this person would not be a good person to have around.
so i am very pleased that you said you like this one better. i do as well. now i have a better sense of direction as to how to change my writing.
(i wasn't sure whether to write this reply on your blog or mine, so i just wrote it on mine. we need to force other people to have journal blogs).
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