I SUPPOSE THE SEED OF THE IDEA was planted months back when I was on the beach with a girl I was moderately interested in and who was not at all interested in me. We were sitting on a half-buried log listening to the ocean breathing. It was supposed to be hot, so we dressed lightly. It turned out to be breezy in the end though, the kind of cold that seeps in and surprises you, so we were clutching ourselves, making our bodies into eggs. I was staring out at the ocean.

—What do you think is on the other side of the water? I asked.

It was one of those times where words just came, just leaked out of your mouth, even though you had never asked for them in the first place.

—I don't know, she said. Then she adjusted her sunglasses.

I was hoping she would say something interesting, like, on the other side of the water is two people who look exactly like us who are wondering what's on the other side of the water. Instead she just kept wearing sunglasses, despite there not being any sunlight. Her skin was too orange. She was an uninteresting person and will someday get what she deserves.

That was probably the first and definitely not the last time that I wished I could jump in the ocean, grow scales that would break sunlight like glass, and get away from her and her stupid orange skin and the sand, that awful too hot too rough too old sand, that I could just jump in the ocean and swim for so long that after a while the water and I would forget that we were not the same thing, would flow so perfectly together that we would introduce ourselves to other fish as a singular entity.

—Can we go now? she asked, and maybe I answered and maybe I didn't. Either way it didn't matter.

I have envied the fish for so long.


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