《卧室里的鱼》顾裳霜

2、Fish in the Bedroom The s

　　The sunlight leaked through the blinds, resting on her face.
　　She opened her eyes. The sun shined right into her pupils.
　　She sat still.
　　Then she moved, like an animal stiff after hibernation.
　　She sat up. Leaning against the blinds, she started to look around.
　　Connected dining room and guest room. A wooden front door with a simple lock. An open kitchen, and on the other side of the house, a restroom.
　　In the end, there was a bedroom.
　　She glanced at the bedroom, rested her eyes on the wooden floor in front of the bedroom door.
　　After a few minutes, she got off the couch and walked up to the bedroom door.
　　After hesitating for a few seconds, she pushed the door and went in.
　　It was dark. The bedroom door clearly defined the line between the brightness and the darkness. Out of border the dust swirled and shined in the sun, and in the edge there laid darkness.
　　The dusts swirled in and out.
　　She went into the darkness; the door shut after her.
　　A slight noise came out from the hinges, like a sign from the past.

　　In the darkness, the thing was huge, fluorescent, sitting cross-legged in the small bed and its watery eyes looked gently at her through its glittering hair.
　　She reached up to its face. It tilted its head so her hand could pass through its hair on the side of its neck and touch its neck back.
　　It felt fresh and silky.
　　She tiptoed to feel its neck, with care.
　　The tips of its neck bones popped out of its silky skin. The bones were smooth but pointed like a piece of jade ornament. She thought she touched something wet, but when she examined her hands, they were dry. Strange. As if the moisture from some big water was slowly leaking out of the creature's bones through the very tips that stuck out of its skin.

　　It smells so good. She thought, like a pool.
　　She could vividly picture the smell. It had just rained. The grass was growing. Fish were swimming in the pool. It was in the morning, the water was quite, wrinkly, shiny.
　　What should I feed it? It has to eat something, doesn\'t it? But I've never seen it eating anything. It never asked me for anything either.
　　It\'s such a wired thing. She pouted.
　　It jumped off the bed and came toward her. She raised her head more, so she could touch its forehead with her own.
　　Its forehead was a bit cold.
　　It gently lifted its hand, and touched on her face briefly with its fingertip.
　　She didn\'t avoid.
　　Encouraged by her reaction, its water-like eyes rippled. Raising its jaw, it cheerfully kissed on her cheek.
　　At first, she was surprised, and then she started to smile.

　　She elaborates on it every day. More and mored details.
　　It looked like a human, but the differences were obvious.
　　Long hair; pointed ears; long and narrow eyes; and a small mouth, no teeth, with a small round tongue at the deep side of its throat. She once felt something like vocal cords in its throat, but she never heard it speak.
　　It had two fingers on both of its hands, but no nail on any of its fingers.
　　Its feet were very smooth and soft, too soft, for any walking creature. It was, in fact, the most sensitive part of its body.

　　It never occurred to her that it had pains, just like every other creature.
　　Its feet were not for walking, not to mention jogging or leaping.
　　Every time, when she was out of the bedroom, it would lie on its belly in the bed, twisting its body, to touch its feet in pain. It never wore expressions on its face, or maybe she saw them but couldn\'t understand; the water rested still in its eyes, but its eyelashes, like beautiful velvet, trembled. Whenever its finger touched the tip of its toes, its foot would twitch as if bitten by a snake.
　　When she approaches it, it would always leap off the bed, coming up to her with delight.

　　She added more and more details about it.
　　In the sun, its hair was soft, flowing like mercury. Its skin was delicate and smooth like porcelain, or a layer of thin, milky membrane. It looked somewhat transparent, with the lines of its bones vaguely visible in intense light. It didn\'t have eyebrows, and the eyelashes were tiny but thick, sticking to the eyelids. Its eyes were as bright as pounds or springs.
　　In waters, its spines would stick out as fins, and its jaw would get torn into two, making its cheeks into gills. Its body was soft as seaweeds and flexible as jellyfish. It could always blend into the water with its translucent body. Sometimes, she could barely see it.
　　She had never seen it eating anything.
　　What does it live on
　　Doesn\'t every creature feed on something

　　The bed in the bedroom grew bigger and bigger, and it didn\'t seem so huge after all.
　　She could hardly remember the time it had to jump off the bed to be close to her height.
　　She was busy every day, school, work, chores. Sometimes she was too busy even to open the bedroom door.
　　It would always stay in the bedroom.

　　Time flew. One day she suddenly wanted to see it, so she went into the bedroom with haste, expecting to see it with its tenderly welcome face.
　　It wasn\'t there.
　　An unspeakable fear stormed through her soul.
　　She lost it.
　　She had never hated her powerless self so much.
　　She tried her best to seize it - she was almost screaming with panic.
　　It couldn\'t hear.
　　Her voice was not in its audible range.
　　Any language was faint. Meaningless.
　　It stood at the precipice, tilting its head, as if it was waiting for something, with a very serene look.
　　It jumped off, just like many times before, when it was off the bed.
　　Instead of going towards her, this time, it turned the opposite way.

　　At first, it seemed like the end of the world. She was desperately painful, but could do nothing.
　　It disappeared.
　　Part of herself was gone.

　　Life continued.

　　It seems like there is a new colleague.
　　He is always wearing a black turban, long sleeves, and long pants, his hands in his pockets, standing in various and lightly grotesque postures.
　　His back was always straight as a pine, but he doesn\'t looks up. He doesn\'t sit down. He doesn\'t talk; neither has he listened. He seems to seal himself in a particular dimension. No one could hear him, and he could listen to nobody. He never stares at people. No matter what happens, he doesn\'t care. He stays quietly in a corner, lonely, strange. He\'s not always there; but sooner or later, he will appear in another corner.

　　No. Not.
　　Just some random stranger.
　　She glanced at the weird person, and with indifference, stared at the ground.
　　I lost it.
　　It would never come back for me.
　　After work, she left for home. Her kids were waiting for her.

　　After she left, the strange colleague started taking off his turban.
　　The turban was well-tied, so he slowly untied it, and his hair flowed down like mercury.
　　His ears pointed out from his hair. Bones were visible in the sunset.
　　He raised his head, the water-flowing eyes staring straight at the setting sun –
　　And the figure of the woman walking into it.

　　See you, he thought, my little girl.

　　--the end--