Head HomeIndigo. A dream of the color, and the sound of soft rain. Bathing birds babbled among pines beyond her window, and morning light was warm on her closed face. An ache in the spine. Creaking knees. Shoulders cold cliff-rock. Complaining muscles knotted tight as wood. The wooden house around her also creaked in the wind. Smelled wet. And somewhere echoing through her fields Edgar barked three times, then once more in playful affirmation. Today maybe the last today. In her mind’s eye, falling almost back into dream, Nora surveyed the long acres surrounding her cold home: untended wheat, alfalfa, cattle-corn, all woven through untold ecosystems of weeds. Stray indigo flowers and violets. Scattered dust-filled barns. What the place might look like after all this time. With her right hand she sought the frame of the bed, found it, rough chips of paint flaking. Slowly exhaling at once Nora lifted her iron legs over the edge, thin-socked feet found the bedroom’s planks. Cold air. November hopelessness. With spider-sensitive fingers she plucked her way around the room, imagining violet dawn spilling through her screen window. Stood before the poker-faced mirror out of habit, ran her brush through hair that must now be silver. She felt the satisfying tug on her scalp and loudly past her ears. If her dresser was in front of her, to her right was the window and the pine-scented boxes where she kept his clothes, behind was her rumpled bed, and to her left then was the bathroom. She felt along the door-frame, the sink, the toilet, and sighingly she settled onto its seat. Relief. / Rain drops on her roof were like the “shh” breathed to an infant. Warm blanket of rain over the cold farm. The breathy wind was driving the rain towards her house, cranky knees told of a storm to come. The boisterous wind had the sound of laughter and strife, of voices: the twins arguing somewhere, Edgar probably with them over-enthusiasticly dogging their footsteps. The bellowing wind made the house creak more than usual, but there was something else. A distinctive groan from the foundation up the east wall to the roof-tiles. Someone was in the kitchen. Constance, just like it used to be. Connie was here and the twins were outside: they had arrived closer to dawn than Nora expected. Heavy truck’s tires in mud, headlights had pioneered dawn darkness. Smell of soil. Massaged her own back, kneaded the the flesh on either side of her spine, then wiped and stood from the seat letting her nightgown fall all down around her knotted ankles. Washed herself, and a short shower before the water turned cold. Dried her wrinkles feelingly, smelling soap, and pulled her soft nightgown back on. Socks. / Always a joy whenever Constance came to call — less frequently these days it seemed — always a joy to be with her grandchildren though little Bastian was still mistrustful of her. Always a joy to see her daughter’s family… but she never got to see Matt’s. An image of her son’s face, a red haired ghost of the past, flickered in Nora’s memory. He couldn’t stand this place since he was young, hated his full name “Matthias,” maybe hated Nora too. No reason to stay after his father died. He fled to the city. Must have a wife, several children by now. Well. At least Constance kept coming by. The rain grew heavier, played on the roof like the roll of a snare drum.
The Fish of Fishonce, there were two fish, because i needed them to be happy. but because of their happiness i had to make a change, for happiness cannot last forever. perhaps her little child is lost. it is a boy child maybe. she loves him, whomever he is. i love him too and i dont even know who he is or why i have just now accidentally made him. the mother fish swims through the underworld of the sea searching for the fish baby. maybe she will find him or maybe she never will, she has no way of knowing just like no one will ever read these words. it is ok though, because i have written them. maybe. the mother keeps the story going because she misses her lost little fish. there is an anenome, maybe. no, my mistake, it seems there was not. in a forest of kelp waved some fins that reminded the mother fish of her lonely boy: these treasures are important in the cold depths of the sea. maybe a memory is more important than the flesh, she thinks. she is lonely. once there was happiness. the memory of happiness floats aimless in the sea like her. she has made poor choices in her lonely life but it is important to endure these mistakes, for they showed the poor fish mother (not me) who she really was. i only wrote some words distract myself but now it has become an ocean and fish and the fish are sad though i wanted them to be happy. it is difficult being a fish. and then the fish think 'why am i sad,' and that ‘why’ causes even greater grief and that goes on forever, like the ocean. it is good that i am writing about something big enough to be written about. there i go again making poor choices: this story is supposed to be about the poor little mother fish but i have made a big mess of things by talking about my own problems, so let's not get more distracted here. that is the kind of mistake i will have to live with. 'find my fish,' she says now to someone or to me, so let us all return to that. i would not want to be a mother without her fish. she is mad at me because she thinks i have hidden her fish. i am sorry, i did not mean to hide your fish, but you looked so unhappy being happy and i love you. distractions are the nature of the ocean, any thing can shift at a moment’s notice which makes it difficult to find things that may or may not be lost. there was always a small son at the mother's breast, because love is in the heart. but the mother fish swims on right past her own heart for now, because that should remain the last place she looks. the son must be somewhere. the ocean is vast but every sorrow must somehow come to an end. where can her poor fish be, for he is lost (as i would be) and lonely (as i am). the sea hides her dangers with her beauties so that any might meet a beautiful end if they wish. the mother’s madness might drive her to a beautiful end. she thinks i am not helping her fish, and she thinks i have forgotten her. i’ve discovered that it’s not easy making fish who love each other. there is a so much ocean to traverse. you know what the ocean is like. maybe you are even there now. are you now breathing air or water, or had you forgotten? see how easy it is to become lost? did the mother fish have a son? is there meaning in the search for him, or only when he is found? will i just pick and choose my letters until i am dead? here in the ocean i accidently made i have tried to stay honest, and maintain an honest ocean. the mother is the ocean, and she is searching for herself. is something like that considered an important detail? you might ask me ‘will she find herself?’ and i might reply ‘will you?’ it seems i couldn’t control the flood and now we’re surrounded by these waves that are every question, every answer. when will i be you? when will the fish be found? the mother needs some hope if she is to continue her journey. another memory, maybe, compells her behind a blooming reef. but the memory of her son was not her son. she has so many memories, is one of them her son? has she even lost something, or is she wandering these lonely depths insane? are these words i wrote a shipwreck under which she looms? she knows she had a son, for she knows she has something missing, just as i do. maybe the mother will find her thing, and maybe i will too. the thing is temporary but the maybe is forever and gradually permeates so fully that it is no longer possible to perceive. you are the child of my dreams, if ever you live to read this shallow tidepool. if it has helped you i will be happy, or try. the mother should find her fish, i think. that would make me happy. i have not forgotten that once, long before memory, the mother and her son were one. you and i are one, if you even exist. the ocean is wide to search so at least the mother is keeping busy, but when she has explored it all where else can she look? what else can she try that she has not tried? perhaps she found the answer once and had not recognized it. maybe she will try everything again. or maybe i have lost my way and she has not. she understands her task; what do i know? i only made them. you saw how easy it was. should i never have made them? would they be happier unmade? ‘maybe some fish are happier somewhere, than this lost mother.’ my sister said that and i like to think she is right: far away there are happy fish. i like to think that where they are the notion of hardship is laughable. some of these things that i am making happen to you are not even happening, that is why this is so hard to read, but such are the tribulations of being at the mercy of the tide. it helps me to be a mother fish searching for her fish because i am searching for something to search for. have i found it? curse you neptune for being so perilous! jk though because we are friends. i feel bad when i procrastinate, as if i am keeping the mother from her son. i hope she finds him. am i even able to help her? if i were to say 'poof, here is your son,' would she be happy? if i prolong her misery, perhaps i can prolong her joy. it's the fricton she craves, i think, for that is what i crave. would it be terrible if i got carried away by my own universe? would the fish find happiness if existence did not exist? i could be evil and take it all away if they would enjoy that nonexistence. i nearly typed their destruction just now, but deleted because the mother fish might have liked it less. would she be happy if i finish this story, or is she happier now with something to search for? when i began i did not know the depths to which my fish might suffer. i am sorry i am not working to find your fish. maybe she thinks i have found him already and i am hiding him from her. maybe she thinks i am unable, even, to complete the simple task of returning her beloved son. just because she went and lost him it is as if i have stolen him from her. her confusion is as wide as the ocean. i’ll trade ‘should the mother find her son’ for a better riddle: should i care if she does? because i do, if only because by making those fish i doomed them to unhappiness. but does the mother care how to spell unhappiness? will extra letters help her understand my meaning? i think i’ll allow her son to be discovered somewhere foolish where she should sooner have thought to look, because if i were to withhold my mother’s son from her she might hate me, i imagine, as i too might hate my author from the reverse position.