mesotardigrada

Spluttering, shivering, hauling self out of the lake, wide wet wrinkles of shirt across back and body. Heavy exhaustion. The sky lowers around me. I bob back downwards into the water. Hair is shining mangrove roots, then ends of it hit surface and become a delicate fan.
The moon above, round and calm. My fleshy struggle. I grasp handfuls of mud which are too slick, coat my hands in vileness. Reeds shush further out. A coot calls.

Boiling up behind me the head of a catfish, barbels thrashing. Eyes are secondary organs, side-guarding. He smells me. A hot dread as the wide lips close around my feet. I kick, and kick, try to kick through my weakness and through the fish's strength. He wants to eat me. He is going to try to ingest me. Teeth line the white tunnel my limbs are in. They snag backwards against my clothes as I try to flail my way out of this. His great slow jaw is clamped around my knees. Fuck fuck fuck you catfish, no.

I take a large breath and stop trying to swim forward with my arms, abandon the bank and the preservation of my head's out-of-water needs. My face hits the water and the water burns my nose inside. With the breath held tight in my lungs and eyes shut I bend at the waist, downwards, and reach with my hands towards the fish's face. I touch the smooth slime on his surface. I am trying to find the eyes. I put my fingers into the eye sockets and jab and jab.

Tags: fiction