The Therapist
by
Ina Roy-Faderman
“No-one who was present at the time could tell if it was the later shock-wave, or the huge and beaky maw itself, that swallowed nine-year-old Jimmy whole. Jimmy had stolen a squid whistle from the bottom of a fishing trawler. He unlatched it from the chains on either side of the boat that held the whistle in place when the craft was moving into squid waters and pulled it onto the beach. If you cup your hands – like this – into the red, plastic, barnacled mouth of the whistle, you can blow into it. You can just imagine.
“Seventeen years later, Jim was spewed up on our south Florida shore and took up residence as the bartender at The Elbow Room. He was a good listener, particularly in view of his complete reluctance to tell his own story.
“But eventually, after he had run away with her (the coelacanth) – after he was seen – froth covered, trudging without a towel towards his cottage, wet footprint after dragging wet footprint – and much later, after the break-up, after the sobbing, and the talk about her proud history and evolutionary significance, the sordid, sensual description of the cool vulvo-cloaca and hard, grey plate-scales, he came to understand the whole affair as a product of his early, formative experience.”
“Seventeen years later, Jim was spewed up on our south Florida shore and took up residence as the bartender at The Elbow Room. He was a good listener, particularly in view of his complete reluctance to tell his own story.
“But eventually, after he had run away with her (the coelacanth) – after he was seen – froth covered, trudging without a towel towards his cottage, wet footprint after dragging wet footprint – and much later, after the break-up, after the sobbing, and the talk about her proud history and evolutionary significance, the sordid, sensual description of the cool vulvo-cloaca and hard, grey plate-scales, he came to understand the whole affair as a product of his early, formative experience.”
NUNUM
Blending Flash Fiction & Art
