The fish swam past him lazily.
Otto was lying in the shallows of a creek, not too far away from home - a long-standing morning ritual to realign himself to the miracle of nature - when a slow ripple broke the water’s still surface. The fish continued to move with a slow grace and Otto surveyed this new visitor with keen curiosity. Its fins were lightning yellow - not that he’d ever seen lightning with his own eyes before, its luminance and hue were merely something he’d heard whispered from the rumour mill. The fish was dressed in hundreds of delicate scales that lined a sleek, if somewhat stout body, and all those scales glistened in all different shades of aqua. The contrast of yellows and blues was quite remarkable in the low afternoon sun, the gentle stream of rushing water reflecting and refracting minuscule rays of light all around him like a midday glitter ball. He had never seen a fish like this in his pocket of the globe before. It must be on an adventure, Otto thought to himself with increasing excitement; on one of its own life quests, exploring uncharted territory, paving the way for future pioneers of its kind. He needed to know more.
“Hey!” He quickly called out to the meandering creature. “Where are you going?”
The fish turned toward him with a long, lethargic swivel that started from the tip of its face and slowly rolled down its flank until their entire stumpy body had finally rotated in Otto’s direction. What a dance, Otto marveled to himself, visibly impressed with the control of this specimen.
“There is nowhere to go anymore, I am simply moving in any direction to give myself something to do until it is my time to bid this land farewell.”
Stunned, Otto realised that this fish was on no worldly adventure. It was lost, not only geographically but spiritually, too. Otto was hit by a strange feeling - there was something about the flippant apathy of this fish that moved Otto and made him think of his Brother, who had left many years ago. For a moment he let himself settle into a memory of Lucas and he realised how many moons it had been since they had last seen each other. He allowed himself to tap deep into his memory bank and see the moment with utter clarity. It was the day Lucas and their Father had left - Otto and his Mother were in the kitchen, heads down, hearts closed, as his Father took half of the home and half of its inhabitants and seeped out the front door without even a glance back. On that day, Otto had felt quite terrible. Since that day, he had been determined to live life as a joyous creature, and from that moment he had never understood anybody’s nonchalance towards life, choosing instead to seek pleasure wherever he could - pain never dared to cross his threshold.
“Little fish,” he tried to remain calm, non-patronising. “There are so many places to go, so much to see and live for in this world.”
“I respect your efforts, but they are wasted on my tired soul.”
“What about your shimmering coat? Can you not see its kaleidoscopic world of colours reflecting across the sea floor as you swim onwards? You’re dazzling!” Surely, Otto thought to himself, this collection of words would do the trick.
“I am not dazzled, but blinded. So plagued by bright colours all my life that have slowly chipped away at my vision - I can barely make out your features through my withered sight.” Maybe not.
“Well, my mum always tells me I’m devilishly handsome. Apparently all the men in my family are.” Not big-headed, Otto believed, but honest, and factual, possibly even helpful for the fish to hear.
“I wouldn’t know anything about that. ‘Handsome’ is not a word I associate with my life. ‘Handsome’ I am not.” Again, maybe not. One last shot, Otto thought.
“Of course you are - if you can’t see it in your colours, can you see it in your svelte form, in your graceful maneuvers through the rapidly flowing ravines, rivers and oceans?”
“My boy, I must cut you off there. These things you speak of sound an awful lot like love.”
Otto was dramatically taken aback.
“Well, surely there must be some time you saw love, some time you felt love in yourself?”
Otto could see the fish think - genuinely think - and reach back through life to its past, to a moment where they maybe once felt joy, felt loved, felt good enough.
“There may have been a moment, many years ago when I-”
In a sick twist of fate, the sky broke above the duo before our dear fish found peace, its spoken swan song interrupted by a malevolent bolt diving towards their Earthly coordinates. Finally, with his own eyes, Otto saw lightning yellow. The seething light filled his whole horizon, and it was beautiful.
A BREAK IN THE STORY TO MOURN THE LOSS OF OUR LIGHTNING-YELLOW-FINNED FRIEND. OTTO IS MIRACULOUSLY UNSCATHED.
The following morning and it was time for the funeral, so Otto rose with the sun and paused to plan the ritual - every day must start with one. His clothes were already laid out from the previous evening, that was a given, but today there was a kink in his usually linear life. There were new elements that he had not expected, causing a rather unwelcome detour. The day could still start with a moment of stillness; he could still breathe and reflect and emit feelings of wonder into the universe. Then he had to shift from the norm, think of a different morning route, knowing that an alternative feeling would drive him. It was not a welcome change. He longed for yesterday morning, where nothing was different and he knew precisely what was coming his way. For years now, Otto had an innate desire for ritual, for routine and precise order. For how many years precisely, it’s all a little muddled and even he can no longer be sure, but something in the passing of the little fish forced Otto to break his daily traditions in a rather substantial way. He wriggled a shoebox free from the depths of his wardrobe and padded it with a handful of old socks - he didn’t want the fish to be knocked around too much in whatever afterlife was awaiting them. He shot down the stairs and shouted a farewell to the house, sure someone was bound to hear him.
“I’m off to bury someone! Be back for dinner!”
Otto’s mother, Andrea, was hovering a few feet down the hallway, deep in conversation on the phone. After her husband had left and demanded he take their other son, Lucas, with him, Andrea found the outside world an unfamiliar and feared space, something to be glanced at through a closed window. Despite the fear, she had to find a way to keep her relationships in the outside going somehow.
“Bye honey - make sure you wear your good wellies - looks like we’ve had a night of bad rain out there.” Met with silence, she called again.
“Otto? Honey?” Still nothing. “Sorry, I’m back... No, no, he must not have heard me... Well you know what he’s been like recently - it’s the same every year, but for some reason it’s worse this time around... I know, I know. I just don’t know what to do sometimes... I know, thanks.”
Otto had flown out the door so quickly that he hadn’t even had time to grab his bad wellies, no mind heard his mother’s plea for the good ones. He was heading to the same spot as yesterday’s swim - the second Tuesday of the month always meant a swim in the stream just off Sandwick in the small village of Martindale. Going back today would throw off his schedule of fishing in the lake near Beckside Farm every second Wednesday of the month, but maybe he could make it there afterwards and his usual scheduling programme could recommence. He tried not to focus on the disruption of plans, and instead set his mind to getting back to the spot where he left the short yellow and aqua fish. As he cycled past St Peter’s Church, he slowed down to peer through the trees at the four little gravestones on the grass by the front door. He picked his favourite grey mound and left a small garden spade leaning against the stone wall, ready for digging on his return. After another minute or so, Otto made it to the bridge with a concealed path down to the water, and he started to descend.
Carefully climbing down, Otto quickly realised that the water was far higher than it had been yesterday. In the spot where he could usually lie quite comfortably, the stream was already creeping towards his knees. He was hit by another memory - his Father this time - they were away, exploring the Lakes, he remembered shouting. Why? Otto shook his head - no time for reminiscing, he had a funeral to hatch.
“Why didn’t mum say anything about the rain?” Otto wondered aloud, annoyed at now having to clumsily wade over to the roots of the tree where the fish had been delicately stowed away.
A light panic started to simmer as Otto got closer and couldn’t see a single sign of a lightning-yellow fin amongst the brown network of bark. With desperation he pushed the surrounding foliage away, the water moving faster than normal as his panic boiled over. The fish had been swept away by the current; it could be anywhere by now.
Putting his best front crawl into practice, Otto tore along the stream, gaining great speed thanks to the increasingly violent current. He stopped every couple of feet to root around the banks of the stream, tearing through plants and roots, desperately hoping for some sign of the fish’s remains. Crawl, stop, search. Crawl, stop, search. It was an exhausting routine, and Otto’s inherent optimism was beginning to dwindle. By the time he resigned himself to the fact that the fish was gone, Otto had swum so far along the water network that he no longer recognised where he was anymore. The current was getting stronger and the rain was picking back up with every passing moment. Because he had spent all of his energy and efforts on his very impressive front crawl, it was becoming increasingly more and more difficult to remain his ever-optimistic self. Spotting a gentle slope in the bank, Otto swam towards it, dragged himself from the water, and crawled towards higher ground.
-
With Otto’s quick dash swiftly slipping from her mind, Andrea was steadily making her way through the phone book, picking up the latest tidbits of gossip and passing them on as her own salacious tales, blissfully unaware of the mounting danger her son was in. Eyes in a temporary glaze, she noticed a sheet of paper lying by the front door, presuming it had fallen from Otto’s bag as he tore through the house. Half-listening to her current conversation, she stretched the phone cord to its limit and reached for the paper. Border to border, on top of a handwritten letter addressed to Otto, the paper had been frantically hacked at with yellow pencil, the words ‘DEAD FISH’ etched over and over and over again. The letter was signed by Lucas.
“Jean? I have to go. I think something’s happened.” The phone fell from Andrea’s hand and collided with the floor; the BOUNCE, Bounce, bounce on the rough pine echoing throughout the hollow house. Andrea folded out the letter, trying to look past the yellow pencil screams at her long lost son’s words. When her husband had taken Lucas years ago, Andrea didn’t think she would ever hear a word from either one of them again, there was so much fury in the house on the day they left, and during the weeks and months leading up to that final morning. The letter spoke of a plan to meet, to run away. How long has Otto been speaking to Lucas for? Why would he not have told her? Why had he destroyed his brother’s letter?
Andrea went to grab her coat and her good wellies, neither of which had been dusted off in a number of years. She rushed to the door, hand poised above the handle when her entire body lost its heat in one sickly moment. Frozen to the core, she began to sweat, then shake. As her vision started to blur, it was immediately kicked back into gear with a harsh flash of light immediately followed by another. Blue. Red. Blue. Red. An unfamiliar siren blared and the car door opened as Andrea stepped back from the mouth of the house; her captor, her protector.
-
Otto lay on the grass, face to the sky, and breathed, never before being so aware of the rapidity of his own breath. Feeling the cool, damp blades of grass around him began to soothe the fire of the panic and in his intense physical maneuvers. To aid the calm, Otto watched the clouds above him, watched them shift and glide but never colliding with one another in the great, endless expanse. For the briefest of moments, he forgot all about the fish and the reason he had travelled so far from home. Several minutes passed and the pulsing burn eventually left his arms, so he pulled himself from the ground and finally looked at his surroundings. He had made it to the outskirts of another town, one he didn’t recognise from so far away - he could see buildings on the horizon, with nothing but fields and a few scatterings of minuscule woods between them. Not one to permit stress more time than it needed, Otto set his direction and walked straight, determined to make it to the town and back home in time for dinner.
Trudging through the field, Otto was suddenly aware of a new sensation - he felt with utmost certainty that he was being watched. He stopped on the spot and turned his head from side to side, but saw nothing. Only marginally perturbed, he continued onwards, reaching the first wall of trees within a few minutes. A dozen or so trees deep, it was a relatively small woodland, but the dense sky of leaves blocked all sunlight and very quickly Otto was having to squint to see anything a few feet in front of him. The feeling of being watched didn’t leave him and he was more alert than ever before. Still there was no sign of another human around when suddenly a branch behind him snapped. Otto spun around with fervor.
“SHOW YOURSELF!” He screamed into the woods, fists raised, ready for an attack.
“Whoa, slow down, kid. I’m just making sure you get to wherever you need to go.” A slow, composed voice called back to him. Otto was unconvinced.
“Why?” He shouted. “Who are you?”
“Just a friendly guide in your latest adventure.” From behind a nearby tree, a red deer emerged, slow but graceful. Otto immediately relaxed, the fear of surveillance fleeing from his body, immediately replaced with warmth and security.
“I’ve never seen a real deer before!” He blurted out with a gawk.
“Well, here I am, and I just want to make sure you’re okay.” There was a protectiveness that radiated from the deer, and as the fish had reminded Otto of his Brother, this deer seemed to hold a quality that immediately transported his mind to memories of his Father. With that realisation and the subsequent onslaught of paternal memories, however, something turned within Otto; as their walk grew, so did his unease. There was something about the deer that seemed too friendly, too eager to lend its support.
“What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t - it’s been so long since I’ve been called that I seem to have forgotten it.”
At a break in the fence that lined the field, they crossed its threshold. Otto went to turn right, directly towards the town, but the deer meandered to the left.
“I think town’s closer this way.” Otto said, a fragility in his delivery.
“I can see why you’d think that, but I know these fields and trees - that way leads to a woodland that’s too dense to pass through. For me anyway.” With a wink the deer continued to the left, but that response was all Otto needed. He let a few moments pass so that the deer’s flank was firmly pointed in the opposite direction and he fled towards the woods, praying with each bound that his feet would connect with the floor and drive him onwards. An exclamation came from behind him and he heard distant hooves gallop closer and closer. Otto ran harder than he ever had in his life.
“Where are you going!?” The deer screamed into the closing gap. “I’m trying to help you get home!”
Otto couldn’t let the deer get into his head, so he pushed even harder. By some miracle, he reached the edge of the wood with only a couple of feet left between him and the deer. Launching into the thick trees as a crash erupted, Otto buried himself amongst a tight cluster of exposed roots and gripped himself into the smallest ball. Minutes later, he opened his eyes and to his relief the deer wasn’t above him. He pulled himself from the tight cluster he had buried himself in and looked back towards the way he came, where he saw a floating shape at the outskirts of the woodland. The deer had been impaled on the torn branches of a broken tree; the wood tearing through its flank. Otto surveyed the creature and could only just make out the crimson rivers that ran through the deer’s deep red coat.
ANOTHER BREAK IN THE STORY TO MOURN A SECOND LOSS. SOMETHING INSIDE OF OTTO IS CHANGING. HE FEARS HE IS COMING UNDONE.
“Mrs Lewis?” The officer called out to a mute Andrea. “I need you to answer these questions for me, okay?” Andrea snapped into focus.
“It’s Ms. I haven’t been married for a long time.”
“And you haven’t seen your son in a long time either?
“I see Otto every day.”
“Not Otto, Ms Lewis, Lucas.”
“Oh. No, not since my husband left. He took Lucas with him.”
“And have you spoken to him at all since then?”
“Once. He called the house without his father’s knowledge but I think he got caught. I haven’t heard from him since and I don’t know how to track him down.”
“We think he was trying to track you down.”
“Me? No, that can’t be right, I haven’t heard a word from him and he was too young to remember our address. Otto, my other son, it must be Otto - I found this letter just before you came to the door.”
“Right now?”
“Just this second, I swear.”
“Can I take a look?”
Andrea handed over Lucas’ letter and the police officer scanned the hacked scrawls on top of the delicate lettering, their face dropping at the violence.
“We received a call from Lucas’ father - Lucas went missing two days ago and your address was found in one of his drawers. Frank traveled down here but he didn’t want to join me today - he’s out looking for Lucas.”
Although safely inside, a chill crept over Andrea once more, her skin lost its colour and her maternal instincts kicked in with force - something was deeply wrong.
-
Staring at the form caught in the trees, the scene around Otto was starting to piece itself together in a most unnatural way. He looked down and his arms were covered in bruises, but he couldn’t remember how he got them. Mud was trapped deep under his fingernails and there was a slight misting of blood on his dirtied jumper. A scream from behind Otto pulled him from this trance and he was met with a dog walker with the most perturbed look on their horror-struck face.
“It’s just a deer, it was chasing me.”
The screams continued with fervor and Otto turned back towards the creature, only this time it had transformed into something else, someone more familiar.
“Strange.” Otto mused aloud, as he turned towards the town and ran for his life once more.
-
Andrea heard the police radio before the officer could run over and turn it down.
“Reports of a drowned body washed up from the stream down past Dale Head, and a mauled body found near the woods outside Hartsop. Any officers nearby to check them out?”
She caught the officer’s eye and started to say something but was abruptly cut off.
“There is no indication that it’s them - but I do need to go and investigate. I’ll be back, okay?” Andrea nodded. “And call the police if you see or hear anything of Lucas or Frank while I’m gone.” Once more, Andrea nodded.
As the police car drove away, Andrea slumped against the wall, her body folding down towards the floor. Instinctually, she reached toward the telephone. Holding it in her shaking hand, however, she didn’t have the faintest idea of who she would call.
-
Sirens slowly rose from the periphery until they blared from all angles and filled the air around him and he ran, ran, ran, ran, he just ran as fast as he physically could. There was an energy, an excitement, a rush of adrenaline that soared through his veins and kept him moving forward. Kept his mind spinning backward. Brother. Father. DEAD FISH. Familiar deer.
Screams and hollers joined the sirens in one unholy harmony. His adrenaline supply eventually depleted and he slowed to a halt. The town was so close. He couldn’t run anymore. It was over. Everything was over. A blow to the skull sent him soaring and Otto collided with the ground.
-
Red. Blue. Red. Blue. The lights filled Andrea’s hallway once more as the same officer got out of the police car and walked towards the front door - hat in their hand, placed over the heart. Andrea ran to the threshold and hovered her hand above the handle once again, willing herself to finally flee from her captor. Looking past the officer, Andrea saw Otto in the back seat. He was staring through the window, his gaze transfixed on her, a devilish grin on a face full of mania. The devil was in his eyes.
As the police officer went to open their mouth and speak, Otto’s door flew open and he leapt from the car. They twisted and unholstered their gun in one perfect maneuver. Andrea hurled herself out the door as a thundering crack tore at her eardrums and a blinding yellow light took over her vision.
She prayed it was lightning.