Listen to the Water | FULL SERIES | Wattys 2022 Shortlist | ✔

(4) Songbirds of the Sea

Rashi help me.

The fishes' mouths bob open and shut in a constant asynchrony that would be comical if they were not in a shoal with a combined mass greater than my own body. I can see my ending already: Ande, surrounded, trapped, and eaten alive by the songbirds of the sea. Are they hungry? I turn, my light flashing over silver bodies in an unending wall. I am encased by tiny, gaping fish, the star of a show I didn't know I signed up for. How do I un-sign? And why aren't they moving?

If I can't beat them, I'll have to try to play along. This would be easier if I knew what game they were playing. I sign them a cautious greeting. As expected, nothing happens. If I have to mimic their little mouths, I swear I will never live it down. I clear my throat, and the shoal startles. So sound works. I could make a louder one, but something tells me that would put both me and them in danger. I'm rather fond of staying alive, and they don't deserve a predator. Not yet.

That's two options down, so I move to the next one and flash my hand-lights at the shoal. Every single fish flashes back. Their patches are under their eyes. Rashi take me, are they all from the same species as the little one I met on the silt hill? And what am I, their leader? A particularly attractive specimen of their own kind? I flash at them again, and the return signal ripples through the shoal in a breathtaking wave. They still haven't moved.

They don't seem aggressive, and I have much less respect for things that idolize me than things that could eat me. I start towards the fish. They part around me as I glide into their midst. Their collectivity is not huge, as shoals go. In a couple more strokes, I'm back out in the open water. I glance behind me. Tiny eyes make a wall of shiny spots in the darkness. They're still there. I swim another arm-span and look back again. They're behind me like I never moved. I kick out hard, shooting forwards, and stop with a sideways kick and flared fins. The fish pull up so fast, they bump into one another. Then they're back to watching me, mouths bobbing. At least they're in a proper ball this time. I flash at them. They all flash back.

I can't tell if I'm supposed to be scared right now, because I'm a whole lot closer to laughing. The fish don't seem to be a threat. I can't see their teeth when their mouths are open, which means they're too small to even take a nibble of me.

"What do you want?" I sign at them. "I don't have any food."

And if I did, I'd be eating it myself. I would catch a fish or two from the shoal if I had confirmation they wouldn't eat me, but given that I'm outnumbered a thousand or more to one right now, I'm not taking that risk quite yet. Maybe by midnight, if I haven't found other food by then.

The night-black ocean is less dark than I was anticipating. Even in the scant light of the fingernail moon, I can see tiny shrimp when they scoot past my face, and the floaties in the water if I focus. The fish shoal loosens as they too begin to spot shrimp. I try for a couple myself, but they're small and speedy, and not even a politely small bite once captured. This does not make my life better, then, when the fish really disband and dart about around me, filling their little faces like they've got nothing better to do than to rub it in mine. I haven't seen a trace of anything edible larger than a shrimp since I left the silt hill, and there's no solid ground in sight. Apparently it's not the sharks, jellyfish, and Luasa in the open ocean that kill you after all. It's the hunger.

The last straw comes when I find an injured member of the shoal about to go belly-up. I nab it from the water, put it out of its misery, and steel myself. Hunger instinct or otherwise, the thought of biting into a raw fish is decidedly stomach-churning. I imagine I'm holding a lump of jackfruit instead. This does not prepare me for the taste, but it gets me past the texture long enough to realize that the taste is actually okay. I'm convinced now that this is thanks to my new Luasa form. I finish the fish and nibble on the bones as I search for another.