“diving at marang”

everywhere & nowhere 28

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July 26

Marang, Malaysia

“The divers will all get together for a collectively choreographed vomit.”  predicted Neal after tonight’s meal. 

& Andrew, it seems, has a fantasy about being wrapped in a plastic bag and having a whole group of people throw up on him.

              ???

***

 

We swam into a shower as fresh as a spring rainfall on the prairies: thousands of tiny green fish raining down upon us, scales capturing the refracted rays of the tropical sun

under the sea

& I am breathing 

(tho the fish have more convenient gills)

My diving gear is awkward, but not so awkward that I am distracted from the spectacle of raindrop fish.

I am swimming with the little electric blue fish

…the ones with the brilliant yellow tails

…the ones from the pet stores when i was a child

…like the one I took home one day in a thin plastic bag

…to set free in my nine gallon aquarium    

freedom is relative

…these fish have a whole world

…even if I can’t see their world

…except with mechanical effort

 

& it took an effort to sink

breathing in/out

not enough out. 

 

i am possessive of the oxygen in my lungs, and it keeps me floating

                        up

              up

 to the surface

            down

             down

to the bottom of the sea

 

Perhaps I have finally bottomed out. A level plane is a matter of perspective too.  A perspective easily enhanced by an environment that magnifies.            

those fish swam free

I do not want to have

              ???

               anything

except maybe the oxygen in my tank at any given moment

 

 

& while I have been sick–violently rejecting the evening meal as predicted–there was no choreography to my performance.  Yes, the loss of one meal is worth it…

Because this afternoon I did not open my mouth to consume those raindrop fish…

                     no

                     we were exchanging stories

                     the sea and i 

& my words were bubbles of compressed air

 

July 28

Marang

theo-philosophically speaking, I believe the soul inside each one of us speaks a story; in the end, the two–story and soul–are indistinguishable.

With its tiny island campong and its beaches, its corals and its fishing boats, this island is like a strong deceptively simple fable. 

 

 

quietly hinting at the prospect of other worlds and other meanings…