by John Morano
When she felt the poison recede from her home, Binti inched her way to the sponge she’d jammed into the entrance to help keep out the venom. She surveyed the coral valley that was her neighborhood and saw the dead anemone across the way. Ozob and Agora’s home. The long tentacles that once produced poison of their own now lay lifeless against the rock they once clung to.
Swimming in a crazed circle, alone, was Ozob. Half of his body was paralyzed. The fins on that one side were still. His gill cover didn’t move. The eye could no longer see. As he tried to flee, Ozob could only travel in a ragged loop, going nowhere while inviting the attention of the human who wreaked this havoc. Ozob’s mouth was wide open. He was screaming, but no sound came out. Yet Binti heard him just the same.
The human swam closer. Binti could see Agora, still alive, trapped in a net. There were several other creatures trapped with her. Binti saw sacred angelfish, a goby, a very young grouper, a porgy, a pair of butterfly fish, a peacock sole, and other residents of the reef.
For a moment, Binti wondered if the man-tide were eating these fish. If they did, perhaps their own venom was affecting them the same way it would if Binti ate sprayed fish. Could they be poisoning themselves? Did they not see the connection? It could explain much of the man-tide’s irrational behavior.
The human reached down with a small net and scooped up Ozob. The instant his body felt the mesh of the net, the crippled clownfish stopped struggling. Ozob just seemed to give up. He tumbled into the sack with the other fish, and Agora rushed to his side. The pair huddled close to each other.
As the human swam back to the surface, to the floating island that carried him to Makoona, Ozob’s and Agora’s brilliant orange stripes faded to a pasty dull pink. Their deep black bars became gray. They floated in the sack, bouncing off the other fish as if they were kelp caught in a slow current. They’d left their bodies before their bodies had left the reef. For Ozob and Agora, it was better to die together in the midst of Makoona than to have their last breath taken in a bucket.
The dark irony didn’t escape Binti that these clownfish who survived because of the anemone’s poison, using it to preserve their lives, had lost their lives to a toxin that wasn’t part of the spirit-fish’s creation, a contamination they were never meant to face.
While the human was out of the water, Binti seized the opportunity to flee. She streamlined herself, turned a sandy green with small brown spots, and jetted out of her crevice. She hugged the crusty coral cover, moving away from the seaward side of the reef to a sand shoal close by.
The cleaning station would be a good place to get information about the reef’s latest onslaught, the octopus thought. Binti slid in quietly, dulled her colors, and pressed against a pile of large stones. Posed as an innocuous gray rock, Binti felt a quick nip at her mantle, which caused her to flash an involuntary orange, revealing her position to those gathered at the station.
“It’s not necessary to be so secretive,” Paykak said.
“I’m an octopus. It’s what I do. And what’s with biting me like that?”
“I saw a little sea tick on your mantle. I’m a goby. It’s what I do.”
“Next time, could you wait until I get in line before you start the cleaning?”
“It’s more fun this way.” Paykak swam out toward the station where several of his family members were busy cleaning a lunar-tailed rock cod who had an infected gash on its flank.
“Looks like a big job,” the octopus observed.
“Sure is. This one was hooked, dragged right up to the floating island, and they slammed the claw into his side. When they lifted him out, he slipped free and swam straight here. I got my best healer on it.”
“Wiff?”
“Who else? He and his crew will clean this cod up just fine. It always makes me happy when we steal one back from the man-tide.”
“I know what you mean,” Binti agreed.
“I take it you know about the spraying?” Paykak asked.
“It happened in the valley. They got Ozob and Agora.”
“I heard,” Paykak said solemnly. “Makoona is as dangerous as it beautiful.”
“Tell me about it. I’m the octopus with seven arms.”
Paykak swam closer to the stump of the missing limb. “Let me take a quick look at this.”
“Ah, don’t bother,” Binti said. “It’ll grow back. I’ve been through this before.”
“Seen a few of these myself. It may not hurt right now, but you might want to have Wiff look it over. It could easily get infected.”
“Sure.” Binti bounced a small stone on one of her arms while she looked over the clients at the station. “Looks a little slow today.”
“We have competition.”
“What? You don’t have competition. Why would anyone go somewhere else for a cleaning?”
Paykak, controlling his emotion, replied, “Some wrasses are trying their fins at this game. They’ve lured away several of the morays.”
“Good. You don’t need them here.”
Paykak raised a single fin to silence Binti. He knew where she was going. “Just by virtue of being alive, every creature, even a moray, deserves to have a profishional cleaning. As long as they respect the rules.”
“Maybe,” the octopus conceded sourly, “but I won’t miss them.”
“I will. I could use the business. Morays always have something eating them that needs to be removed.”
“Don’t worry, Paykak. They’ll be back.”
“You bet your wrasse they will. By the wave, had an octopus in here earlier. I asked if he knew you. I think he did, but I really had trouble clamprehending what the shell he was talking about.”
“I’ve met him,” Binti admitted. “I don’t really get him either.”
“He’s a strange one. But I like him. He’s reefishing, kind of catches you by surprise, like a cold undertow. Hey, do you think he got sprayed and it messed with his mantle?”
Binti considered the thought. “No,” she concluded. “I think there’s something else going on in that squishy mantle of his.” The octopus paused. “I can’t believe Ozob and Agora are gone.”
“Yeah, it’s always terrible to lose a good friend, not to mention a good neighbor. And to lose them to the spray.”
“I haven’t seen either Hootie or Ebb. Any word on them?”
“Haven’t seen them, but a stargazer named Smyke was in here for a little trim, and he mentioned a farmer who was all fuzzed up about his algae getting sprayed. Sounded like Ebb to me.”
At that moment, Paykak noticed one of his gobies sending a bass on its way before the cleaner had completed its job. From Paykak’s point of view, that was unforgivable, very unprofishional.
The senior goby flew at the offending cleaner and issued a blistering gill-lashing for the lazy effort, claiming that it violated a sacred trust between the fish and the cleaner. He went on to predict that oversights like these would lead to other undesirable habits that would ultimately threaten the delicate beauty and the very existence of the cleaning station.
Binti could plainly see that the stress of the wrasses’ operation would produce dire consequences for any slacking gobies working under Paykak.
The octopus morphed into a pale yellow with thin blue streaks and crawled slowly toward home, relieved that Ebb, at least, had survived the spraying. But in the back of her mind, she couldn’t shake the sight of Ozob and his silent scream.
As she reached the outskirts of the cleaning area, she was bitten again, this time right between the eyes.
“Stop doing that!” she yelled.
Paykak smiled at her.
“Another sea tick, I suppose?”
“No, I just felt like biting you this time. How about we take a little off around the suckers before you leave? You’ll feel better.”
“Some other time, okay?”
“Sure,” her friend responded. “Hey, don’t worry too much about Agora and Ozob and their anemone. What’s done is done. Th
eir lives—and their deaths—are all part of the balance.”
“That’s what bothers me,” Binti said as she continued crawling. “It’s not part of the balance.”
Back on the surface, Bao beamed over the catch. He gazed down into several buckets that contained a very impressive variety of sea life. Kemar had netted an array of small fish that the Filipino broker would pay good money for. The young refugee, however, was not as satisfied with the results. He really couldn’t understand this type of fishing, but when Bao boasted about the ensuing payoff, saying something about a bonus, Kemar didn’t anchor himself with too much reflection.
A rumbling deep in his belly interrupted his thoughts. Without thinking, the boy reached into the bucket and pulled out one of the small fish. It was swimming slowly, still stunned from a hefty dose of cyanide, but the boy didn’t pause to consider that either. He held the fish between his fingers and bit out the soft dorsal muscle.
Kemar swallowed and tossed the rest of the fish back into the sea. When he reached back into the bucket for another dorsal morsel, a swat from Bao’s oar interrupted him.
“Not eat!” Bao chided.
“I’m hungry, and we have fish,” Kemar countered.
“Worth more in bucket than in belly.” Bao smiled, aware of the boy’s hunger. “Give choice. Boy do good job today. Bao give one dollar bonus or can of Spam.” The man held out both. He was anxious to see what urge was stronger, hunger or greed.
Kemar looked at Bao suspiciously. Then he said, “I’ll take fifty cents and half a can of Spam.”
“Done,” Bao said with a laugh. He cut the Spam in half with a dirty bait knife, laid two grimy quarters on it, and handed both to the boy.
While they ate, the two picked out the dead fish from the bucket and tossed them overboard. Birds gathered to pluck the cyanide-laced catch from the surface, where other fish also floated as a result of the earlier spraying. Occasionally, an opportunistic jack or a torpid white-tip shark would join the feast, swallowing the dead or near-dead fish that struggled on the sunlit surface, thus ensuring that the poison would work its way further into the food chain, perhaps returning to its source one day.
Bao started the hiccupping motor and moved off to another fishing spot. On the way, Bao explained that the boy was a little too heavy-handed with the spray. Too many fish were dying, and the supply of cyanide wasn’t lasting as long as Bao had hoped it would. So, in a twisted version of conservationism, the fisherman showed his assistant how to get the most fish using the least amount of poison while they prepared for another run.
When Binti returned home, two things saddened her. First, her neighbors and their anemone were no longer there. The octopus grieved; losing good neighbors can be like losing family. In fact, for Binti, good neighbors were really as close to family as she would likely ever get, having not actually known or even met any of her octopus relations.
The other thing that saddened Binti was the coral. The living rainbow that was Makoona was now flecked and patched with a dull gray wherever the cyanide had come into contact with the coral. Soon, it would bleach a lifeless white.
With its vibrancy now muted, the octopus was reminded just how precious and fragile her home actually was. She was reminded that the structure was alive, that it had taken ten million years of coral polyps secreting limestone to build the community that she lived in. It was something she knew but couldn’t explain how she knew it.
Binti dragged herself up to her hollow. From behind a pale, sagging wisp of what was once purple fan coral, Hootie appeared.
“Hey,” the blowfish blew. “You didn’t get sprayed, so why so blue?” Hootie was speaking literally, as the octopus had turned a dark, sullen shade of blue.
“Ozob and Agora weren’t so lucky. I was worried about you and Ebb too.”
“Ebb’s fine, although his algae doesn’t look so good. Paykak told me about your neighbors. Sorry things worked out like that. I’ll miss them. But what can you do? It’s the way of the water.”
Binti shook her mantle. “No. Paykak said something like that too, but I don’t agree. If it really was the way of the water, I wouldn’t mind so much. I can deal with whatever the balance brings, but this didn’t come from any creature who knows the spirit-fish.”
As Hootie and Binti sat for a moment, gazing at the deflated, defiled anemone that earlier in the day housed their clownfish friends, they heard a voice. It seemed to come from a blue sponge nestled between three crusty rocks.
The sponge said, “One or two moments. A piece of your time is all I’m asking, and I’ll give you mine.”
The blowfish and the octopus froze. Hootie inflated himself—it was an involuntary defense reaction. Binti, who was already the color of the sand, backed herself under a rocky overhang, lowered her mantle, filled her ink sack, and prepared for the worst. Neither of them had ever spoken to a sponge before. And Binti didn’t recall that there had ever been one in this spot between the rocks near her home.
The sponge spoke a second time, saying, “There are things you can replace and others you cannot. The time has come to weigh those things. This space is getting hot. You know this space is getting hot.”
And at that moment, the sponge pointed at the deceased anemone.
Hootie whispered, “Have you ever seen a sponge point before?”
The octopus replied, “Shell no!”
“Ask it a question,” Hootie dared.
“What do you ask a sponge?”
“I don’t know. Ask it if there’s something we should do.”
And then the sponge spoke again. “Don’t turn away. Step up and see what I can do when you believe . . . Some folks trust in reason, others trust in might. I don’t trust to nothing, but I know it come out right.”
Binti hesitated. She stammered, “T-T-Trust? B-B-B-Believe? In what, b-b-blue sponge?”
The sponge turned yellow, green, and sky blue. “Oh, friend of mine, all good things in all good time.”
“Do you want us to do something?” Hootie asked.
“Reach for the sun, catch hold of the moon. They’re both too heavy, but what can you do?” The sponge burst into a fiery display of orange and red. “Here is fire and bloody slaughter written on the leaves of the water.”
It was obvious to Binti and Hootie that the sponge was referring to the anemone and the spraying that had taken place a tide before.
The octopus thought she understood. “We don’t like what happened either. It’s happened before. But what can we do? One octopus, a blowfish . . . and a sponge?”
“It’s even worse than it appears, but it’s alright,” the sponge replied. “Maybe that’s ’cause it’s midnight, in the dark of the moon besides. Maybe the dark is from your eyes. You know you got such dark eyes.”
“I don’t see what you mean,” Binti said, confused.
“Let’s see with our heart these things our eyes have seen and know the truth lies somewhere in between.”
“The truth of this,” Hootie whispered.
There was silence. The current picked up the flaccid arms of the anemone, and for a moment, they seemed to be alive once again. But as the current swept past, the tentacles settled back down, lifeless on the rock below. They stirred again, and out crawled a small spider crab housed in a dirty, brown, algae-covered shell. Gracefully, carefully, the crab stepped off into the reef.
The sponge spoke again, “Slip out of your shell, you said. Where else you got to go? You been there and back again. What do you really know? . . . It’s all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago.”
Although he was in total awe, Hootie was becoming a little impatient with the cryptic conversation. He blurted out, “You’re a little tough to understand, you know? Could you say things a little more—”
The sponge interrupted, “I will go with you wherever the sun reflects on the shining blue sea. . . . Maybe the sun is shining, birds are winging, or rain is falling from a heavy sky. What do you want me to do, to do for you to see y
ou through?” The sponge turned a deep, dark green, left a small black cloud, and disappeared behind the rocks.
Binti and Hootie glanced at each other and swam over to where the sponge had been. The only thing left was a wisp of the black cloud as it dissipated in the water. And then they heard the voice call out, “You can catch the drift, but not the drifter!”
Al stood alone on the sand in front of his unique home. He lived in a shack that resembled something the Swiss Family Robinson might’ve built. The walls were made of corrugated sheet metal he’d “salvaged” from an “abandoned” USAF hangar. Several functioning portholes were cut into the walls, which were partly secured by a roof made out of the hull of an old fishing boat.
With a capsized craft as his ceiling, Al’s hut was dry, had exceptional pitch during monsoons, and left plenty of headroom underneath for a tall American with good posture. When the occasional coconut dramatized Newton’s Law, it always bounced off the boat with indifference. The heavy wooden hull that had once withstood whatever the sea had thrown at it could still handle almost anything Mother Nature might drop on it as well.
Al breathed deeply. The ocean air was thick and not nearly as salty as usual. The sky was a grayer shade of blue, one that more closely resembled the sea below it, a sea that churned restlessly. A storm was coming. Al was pleased. Had he been out on the ocean, he would’ve felt differently, but facing the storm on land was another story.
A bit of a hermit, Al enjoyed weather—all types, as long as it wasn’t too cold. He especially liked heavy weather. The quiet fisherman believed the weather was every bit as alive as the flora and fauna of Makoona. And when a storm blew in, it was like an old friend had come to call. For Al, the storms were female. He fantasized that the weather embodied the passionate spirit of a woman. And so he welcomed the storm, inviting it to touch him.
Rolling in gradually from the east, this event was in no hurry. The lady would arrive when she was ready, paying no heed to whatever man might place in her path. Al liked that the storm could be unpredictable, uncontrollable. It was a force of nature whose wildness appealed to something deep within him.