Eluthia Ch 1

Flirting with the idea of becoming a marine biologist, Minus bided his time at a local aquarium owned by an ex- burly fisherman by the name of Gerald. Despite his brooding stature and his gruff appearance with his unshaven face portraying a cloudy day, his gentle nature would soften or even the catch the blows Minus received at home.

 

He gazed through the watery world of a 60-gallon aquarium as if languishing at the backside of a mirror, hoping to extricate something other than his reflection.

 

“Daydreaming?” Said Gerald.

 

“Yeah, been feeling out of sorts. Comfort is not easily attained these days.”

 

“Maybe it never was.”

 

“What?”

 

“Comfort.”

 

“Oh, yeah.” The notion had passed him by for the moment … not having that comfort, a lapse in perception perhaps having mistaken a budding flower for a butterfly. The observer exhilarated by the blooming rose all the while pricked by its deceitful thorns. When Minus had had his sheer, hazy moments… blazing stoned in front of the television, his own casting of himself in the movie registered an oxymoron of pleasure that time passed him by. Now, that oxymoron never presented its fragile polarities so well as he wallowed in an ocean utopia.

 

Minus’s paper thin relationships with the outside world for the last fifteen years had turned his room into the only potential cataclysmic refuge in the vast universe, a space of dark matter that lacked any viable intimacy. His room developed such a foreign feel as to linger aloft, drifting into space amongst the neighboring houses that were only faintly present, and silhouetted outside, you could see outlines of an imposter world as Minus attempted to make sense of his new Conscious. Yet his room closely resembled the surrogate father figure, which in quiet amusement to have the ghost of his actual father behind those swift brush strokes and capsulated in portrait over his dresser drawer.

Minus started building that proverbial bridge everyday, reconstructing his faint heart to reflect those colors he could not perceive on the color spectrum; he had to acquiesce his own sense of social belongingness. Building relationships with people was just that way, and you could never hide the color you despised, for it clearly showed on your face. Minus would have to struggle to create his own hues and extricate what their meaning contended.

 

His room was his only retreat, sanctuary for his undignified life. His closet crowded with books, he had enough reading material to last him a lifetime. Most of the reading material was by Russian and Romanian authors. Minus’s bed sat adjacent to a window. Drooping languidly by the window, the Cyprus tree tapped its fingertips. Next to the left of his bed was his dresser drawer with a picture of his father on top, his father had the look of serenity with a sense of haste in his eyebrow, yet his eyes flashed with worry and contentment at the same time. His television he hardly watched sat to the north of his bed. Wind chimes dangled from his ceiling. Minus also had a collection of ceramic frogs imitating human emotions, gestures and tasks. One frog on his dresser, with a folkish face, strummed the guitar. An array of frogs frolicked and caroused on his dresser drawer. To the right of his Television was his fifty-gallon aquarium. On his floor were numerous role-playing magazines of all sorts. Minus painted the room himself in oceanic colors, amazed how he had gotten away with it without his Uncle affronting him about it. His ceiling was a mild yellow, with swirls of opaque greens and blues. His wall work was an oceanic, turquoise blue. Adjacent to his father’s photo was a picture of Vincent Van Gogh.

 

“If it were backwards,” he thought “all the ugliness would be mirrored as beautiful.” Minus would go to his bathroom mirror, and gleam another mirror against it, and this was his philosophy of life, that life had begun with two mirrors looking at each other, an infinite number of possibilities in the mind’s eye; that infinity had loathed itself so much, life came echoing back out of the equinox. Physics, in one unique moment, had folded, it was then the ever-seeing eye had seen its own glances. The god that had dreamt up the universe. Then atrophy occurred when Ullkrest asserted his power. Vision had become finite, solidified and one-sided. Because all reality starts in the mind, man had reached a brick wall in his assertions. Despite the notion of the afterlife, the other side became a dream, only a dream, and a fantasy of unconscious wishes, a fantasy that resulted from confinement.

 

Minus searched for that infinite love within the confines of his room, sorting with the pictures on his wall, emphasizing with the colors hoping that for once bleed in recognition. Minus came to a stopping point.

 

 Gerald was the closest companion he ever had. Minus, even though just a lowly clerk at a fish store, was just a few steps away from tenure of owning it. After Gerald retired Minus could take his place. Gerald was a stout man with fisherman eyes and a rugged face, but a face of enduring age.

 

Gerald was an articulate man, which was why Minus and him shared a commonality of oceanic verses. Minus too felt like a castaway net fishing with absent bait.

 

Minus shuffled in to work. The sun ricocheted on the glass door, stealing glances from Minus’s eyes. He was a few minutes late, but would have been earlier if his uncle wouldn’t have nagged him.

 

“How’s your internship coming along?”

 

“Just fine. I have a few more weeks to get through.”

 

Minus interned at the marine lab, studying samples. He was finished with the coursework, but he grew tired of the armchair fantasies. He wanted to be right there in the ocean.

 

“Looks like you’ve been trouble sleeping. Looks like it’s nothing a good fishing would take care of. You should go with me sometime. Fishing has a way of keeping your spurs from jingling and jangling.”

 

“Yes that would be great.”

“You want to be a marine biologist, correct?”

“Yes.”

“A little ocean never done anyone harm, but too much can make your soul bleak. You dream much Minus? Seem like you do. Sea people seem to be always big dreamers.”

“I have my share.”

“I was a big dreamer too until I got too much sun.”

 

Gerald would tell him stories of life on the ocean, Moby Dick stories. He would say,

“After days of fishing, the sun would begin to soil your skin, and on the horizon the suns shattering rays would mirage the ocean line. However, at night it would be cold and dark. Days on end, time seemed to melt, even with the setting and rising of the sun, and the boat would rock with an unsettling lullaby, the days would take on a dreamy like quality. It all seemed like a hallucination. Hunger and thirst would get ya too. At a certain point the body is just a quilt, but the soul has its own music. Hunger and thirsts are mirages too. Soon the world would blanket right over ya, and the only desire you’re left with is a resounding sleep, but you could never obtain it. My hands felt like two balloons, sometimes felt I would castaway in those sinister seas. So, don’t get too hung up on your dreams, if you know what I mean.”

 

“So how’s that a*****e of an uncle of yours?”

“As bitter as always.”

“I know how it is. Having to live with someone you can’t live with.”

 

Minus shared his stories of his mystery childhood, trying to fill in the blanks. He vented about his uncle all the time too and the mystery inheritance that his uncle could not get his hands on.

 

“If I were you, I would keep a close eye on him.” Said Gerald.

“My whole life feels like a scam.”

 

The work clock ended. As Minus was walking out Gerald made one last comment. “Don’t dream too hard kid.”

 

Reviews

[Blackbirdsong]

I think you mean "burly ex-fisherman" in the second line.

Again I can see all the work you've done with this chapter Lionel and I really like how this has expanded from what you originally had. Minus' story is even more intriguing with this draft than with the other ones I've read before. I look forward to reading more.