In Actuality

            It wasn’t when we pulled around the corner of the new house and saw the blinding shore line that I knew. It wasn’t even smelling the almost harshly crisp salty air when I climbed out of the backseat. It probably should have been when I shuffled over the sand for the first time, but my shoes were on and I can’t really be blamed for that. Now I know I don’t need shoes.

            It was later. When I lowered my toes into the ice cold water for the first time. When I scrunched my foot into the wet sand and felt the waves ebb up and down my calf. It was the loss of feeling in my feet as I stood there in the freezing water and I felt the very thing that made me know I was alive drain from the part of me that was immersed.

            I was a fish.

            When I told my mother this she nodded and pushed my hair back from my face like she always was doing. When I told my father he handed me a box and told me to go pick a room. My mother told me to get my shoes from the shoreline and I reminded of her who I was. Fish do not need shoes. Or a jacket. They do have scales though, with many bright colors. And fins. I needed some fins.

            I learned as much as I could about my new people before I embarked on my journey to my new family. Mine were well enough I supposed. My mother smelled like warm laundry and my father made the best grilled cheese sandwiches that I’d ever had. But these were small traits in light of the life of a fish.

            Fish skipped through the water, I decided. I practiced about the yard jumping up as if I was breaking through the water’s surface and brushing the air. I blew out my cheeks and blew bubbles up to the top, sending messages of my wellbeing to my father and mother. I spread my arms and rubbed against our carpeted living room, knowing I had to practice good scale scrubbing hygiene practices for my new life.

            My mother allowed me to be in my natural place for only small bits of time. I tried to explain to her that we would have to say goodbye soon, I needed to find my fish family. But she would just tuck me into my dry bed and push my hair back from my face and tell me she loves that I’m so spirited. I tell her about my scales and how they shift in the rays of sunlight that push to the ocean bottom. I tell her how I’ll make deals with the crabs for the best sand spots and how I’ll befriend the octopus so he’ll help me button up my shirts when I want to change scales, because I’ll have a hard time working the buttons while I’m getting used to my new fins.

            When we eat I practice picking up my food with just my mouth until my father scolds me and says that if I’m going to eat like a dog I can eat out on the porch like a dog. I told him in my best whale speak that I was not, in fact, a barbaric four legged land walker but the greatest shark he’d ever seen. And if he wanted to keep his legs, he’d let me eat my food however I saw fit. It was to no great surprise that I did in fact end up eating my dinner on the front porch. But that allowed me to keep working on my ever growing seagull interpretational skills. I assumed they provided the navigation for all the fish groups and I needed to know where to go.

            I was still surprised when the water felt cold to me. Just for a few moments and then it faded into a painful prickle sensation that then also went away and I knew that whatever part of me was immersed had turned to its true form. When I looked down and saw my feet I knew it was because my eyes had not transformed and therefore could not see me as a fish. I tried putting my head under water but it was too cold and I stumbled back onto the sand with a gasp, salt stinging my human eyes.

            I knew I had to get a feel for the rhythm of the waves. It would be very hard to swim with new fins in such surging conditions. I wondered if the fish could see the white tips in the water and if that had something to do with how they communicated. I found the tire my father had just taken off one of his trucks the other day. He’d shown me how to screw the metal knobs off the car and told me the rubber was full of air. I imagined the air like a balloon and the heavy metal frame was weighing it down. When I told him this he laughed and told me the only way the tire was flying off was if it was on waves.

            So I wheeled it down to the water’s edge pushed it over and let it bob in the water. I pushed on it, testing, and when it pushed back against my hands I grinned. I sat down on the center of the metal thing and shoved off from the shore.

            I pushed my hands through the waves, willing them to turn to fins so I could propel myself the way I was meant to. The tire rocked side to side, dipping over the tops of the waves as we slowly made our way to white caps.

            The wind picked up. The waves came up to meet me and crashed over the top of my small raft. It tipped and I slid over the edge, clinging to it with fear until I felt that tingling sensation in my chest. I loosened my grip and slid into the water, letting it go over my ears and tangle my hair.

            My hands ceased to be hands. My feet were gone. My ears stung as they shrank into my skull. I felt a pain in my throat and I gripped my neck, knowing my gills must be sprouting. I opened my eyes through the salt sting and watched the sun slowly darken, they were changing to sea born eyes. It was happening.

            I was a fish.