Fish Swim Where They May
Stream of Consciousness POV from way back when - PLUMP, UNDER, STAR
Image: Zivah Avraham
Way back in January 2025, I took part in my first Stream of Consciousness POV workshop hosted by the inimitable, talented and insanely busy . Little did I know that it would do wonders for my prompt response writing (although maybe my subconscious did understand, because why would I have signed up otherwise?).
One day I plan to actually join a workshop - for the banter and fun of the live word allocation process, rather than being the international woman of mystery (that is, being an email participant). Time zones be damned.
All this to say, I picked up my prompts list from the January meeting, ’s words jumped out, shouting “Me! Me! Me!” and this story was born.
It’s a great coincidence because Keith announced yesterday that he has created a monster story from all of the prompts from the most recent workshop, and this is also coming out today. I can’t wait for it! My brain’s addled at the moment, so I can’t quite imagine attempting that myself, but maybe one day. ) has something boiling using all her prompts, too. So much fun!
Anyway, here’s my story. I hope you enjoy it and please do let me know what you think, good, bad and ugly.
Stream of Consciousness is such a wild, wild ride!
Thank you to everyone who took part in January’s workshop and supplied me with words to look back on and inspire me -
(I already responded to his words - see below)He’s picking at that hangnail again, ploughing at it with the age-yellowed talon adorning his left thumb. Death’s scythe personified. It appears mindless. Furrows of concentration crease his forehead, folds of skin, a hood for the brain focusing on the task in hand.
That’s me, making a joke. Thumb. Hand. Get it?
Yes, you get it. I can see your eyelid flicker in acknowledgement. Anyone else would think you had something in your eye, which is more than believable as there are no eyebrows, no eyelashes, not a single hair on your body, least of all long luscious locks of silvery white framing your translucent face.
I used to wonder what it would be like to be under the covers with you, a smooth, alien being, a newborn bird, all dermis and keratin and salt. The thought, the image, the sensation would ripple in waves across my skin, gooseflesh raising the hairs on my arms.
A shiver of attraction now, of repulsion it used to be. I picture you, sucking your plump, salty thumb. Me, tying a bonnet on your head to keep you warm, but not before I prod the fontanelle pulsating on the crown of your fuzz-free head. The skin is… greasy. Like the skin curving around the whorls of my ear. Like expectation. Of what, I don’t know.
You tell me.
You told me. Eventually.
You’re an adult, even if you’re womb-naked. Less than that. Maybe your mother didn’t look after herself when she was carrying you like an unwanted accusation. Did she smoke? Eat soft cheese? Drink gin and sit in a bath surface-tension full, water so scalding her skin might slide off, so much tripe slapping on the tiled floor. Prosaic. Mundane. So human. Oddly. But all it did was blister her in parts nobody should talk about in polite company (we’re all so polite these days) and turn her belly to leather. You hung in there with your prehensile fingers and toes, your bulbous lips mouthing bubbles of protest, albino pink eyes shining in defiance. In the saline gloom. You refused to relinquish your hold and she should have known better really, the family line that spawned you being what it was.
She dropped you from her not-quite safety net down by the harbour. And slithered away. Your father was out in his boat, riding a sea of mountains, waves harsher and more granite than Scardale Crags. That little fishing boat creaked and yawed and near snapped in two, but thanks to whatever religion you care to follow, he steered his Lady Antrobus back to shore as the last star slid over the horizon and the dawn light shimmered, silhouetting the hills in the distance. Back to shore, back to fringes of bladderwrack and empty razor clams cutting the sea wall to ribbons, back to dumping his fish boxes hard on the market floor to charge a fair price or a bit more, if he was lucky. He got more than he bargained for, or maybe less, given your lack of hair and blinking ruby eyes.
“Damned scrawny bugger looks like it’s come from the deep,” one of his crew snarled, lighting his pipe, cupping the flame against the battering ram gale. Staring at you mewling, barely wrapped in a blanket.
Your father scrutinised you, silent as was his way. He commanded his ship with an unbending will and grunts as punctuation, nodding rarely, smiling not at all. And yet his men (he called them that, even though one was naught but a boy) followed his every instruction as if they had been hypnotised. As if they adored him.
“It’ll do,” was all he said, picking up the wicker crate you had been abandoned in. “Tomorrow, as usual.”
And tomorrow was as usual, meeting at the harbour wall at the right time to catch the tide.
But it wasn’t as usual, for there you were, in the same basket, covered with the same rough, grey blanket with red stitching round the seams, blinking, owl-like in the rosy dawn. He strapped you to the captain’s chair bolted to the floor of his boat’s tiny cabin and set sail for where the mackerel shoaled, a gleam in his eye. He knew, with a certainty none could shatter, that you were a good luck charm.
And so you were. And so the fishermen in that run-down town shrugged their shoulders and believed in the myth of you, because it was true. As true as I’m standing here, and as true as you’re lying there, greasy, like mackerel, with your iridescent glow and your albino eyes.
Your father, picking at his hangnail. watches silently. He knows, for all my protestations, that I want to take you away, and you’ve more than half a mind to go. Fish swim where they may, in the sea, in the blood, in the veins.
He built an empire based on you, all the while knowing that, much like castles carved from sand, it could all come tumbling down one day. High tides wait for no man, not even a fisherman intimate with the ways of the water.
“Perhaps it is for the best,” you tell him. “Give the fish of the sea their rest. Let your men pursue something more meaningful than stealing from the oceans.”
Your eyes shine, tearful.
Salty.
And he knows you are right, just as you have always been right about the fish and where to find them. Rainbows have their pot of gold, but half the fun lies in the imagining.
Money doesn’t buy everything, least of all a daughter’s love.
Sometimes, we learn that the hard way.
My first Stream of Consciousness POV response - words supplied by
Drowned/Out
This is my first experience taking part in the Stream of Consciousness POV workshop hosted by Edith Bow - thank you to Edith for organising this and also to Jon T for his prompt words Seabird, Surge, Velcro. I don’t know why I attached to this set of prompts specifically - it must have been the velcro!
If reading this impacted you and you have the means to do so, you can buy me a coffee - fair warning, I’ll buy books! Or notebooks. Or stationery.
And… Or… you can do this!
So I read it again. There's just so much in there. Literally and metaphorically. Fascinating piece Zivah!
Wow. I just read it through. Let it take me on a ride. Quite wild! I need to read it again though to catch the nuances and deeper meaning. Love the imagination!