You must forgive me, reader, if my prose turns purple at its edges. I am not a romantic sort of man by nature, and find it difficult to avoid the cliche when I start to speak of my feelings. And you must trust me, reader, that this is not a romantic sort of tale.\n\n<<back>>
I will never be as cold now as I will in the future. The future of cold is infinite.\n\n(David Auburn, //Proof//)\n\n<<back>>
It was a small inn set on the crest of a foothill, almost wholly unremarkable save that it bore no name. There was a tavern's lantern hanging from its porch, though, and a small sign beside the front door indicated there were rooms to let.\n\nI came inside; there was only one man inside, who stood behind a makeshift bar. He was a Japanese gentleman. His hair was gray at its fringes yet he moved with a youthful grace that seemed almost unnatural. His eyes were on me immediately; I could not read the expression on his face.\n\nA long [[aquarium]] was built into the wall behind the man. Fish of all description and colors swam in schools too complicated to sort out -- it was all a blur of bright color. \n\nI introduced myself and suddenly felt hungry.\n\n"<html>ヱコメ</html>," the man said. My Japanese was elementary at best but I hazarded: "<html>マケ スパ</html>?"\n\n"<html>プレソ シト</html>," he said. I did not follow his meaning but he indicated a barstool before the counter. He drew a cutting board from behind the counter and set it before me.\n\n"<html>ピコ</html>," he said, turning to the aquarium. \n\nI thought for a moment, then pointed at a fish that looked close to a salmon. Upon inspection none of them looked familiar to me.\n\nWith aplomb he drew the fish from the aquarium and gutted it in an instant; I caught him smiling but it immediately faded as soon as he realized I had seen it. The Japanese gentleman laid the fish on the cutting board in front of me and began filleting it.\n\nHe was [[a sashimi chef]], and an expert one at that.
!!Cold Dead Fish\n!!!by <<pop 'chris' 'Chris Klimas'>>\nI set out for [[Lady J—]]'s estate. Conditions were nearly perfect as I set out with my steed [[Zephyr]]: it was a cool breezy day at the very mid-point of autumn, in the year of our Lord [[2005]]. Zephyr, for his part, seemed particularly happy, even boisterous as we set out on the long road to Virginia. I encountered few travelers on the road that day: a trader in rare animals who led a long caravan of cages, a group of families making for the New Colonies, a hunting party out for sport. I spoke to none of them -- had no mind for idle conversation. My head was full of anticipation and dreams.\n\nIt had been some time I had last seen Lady J--. When we had last parted it had the feeling of a temporary absence, a small period of time that would soon be lost in memory. A fitful sleep broken by a kiss. And yet it had been a sixmonth's time without a word from her, and then [[a simple summons]] that explained nothing.\n\nI did not care, ultimately. She was [[a singular woman]], and I missed her greatly. I rode thinking of nothing exactly, and though it took me five hours to come within sight of [[her castle]], it felt as though I had only been riding but a quarter-hour.
I have a reputation among my peers for having my head in the clouds -- or, at least, elsewhere, no matter where I am. I take some pride in remembering the majority of my dreams, which even the most forbearing of my friends believe is a meaningless pursuit. And yet -- many are the dreams that have shaped my life.\n\n<<back>>
She was a noblewoman born in a faroff commonwealth; we had met some years ago at an intercollegiate poesy competition. My best friend at the time was soundly defeated by her in the fifteen-meter villanelle, and through a series of coincidences too intricate and far-fetched to enumerate here, we saw each other from time to time, and we -- we grew into each other, if you follow my meaning. The course of a relationship is impossible to describe with words; there is no geography, nor signposts to follow. But you must understand me. She meant the world to me.\n\nI had not been particularly smitten with her when we first encountered each other, though her beauty was beyond reproach. But then my own charms, to mix metaphors shamelessly, are at best a learned taste, and what's past is best left for the dead, anyhow.\n\n<<back>>
His handiwork was delicious: I cannot deny it. It lifted my spirits and made it easy, for the moment at least, to forget Lady J--'s odd message and the conundrum that lay before me. He sliced the fish so thinly it grew translucent as I lifted it to my lips. We did not speak. He simply watched me eat. I nodded and smiled to indicate that it was an excellent repast but he seemed to take no pleasure in my reaction.\n\n"<html>ピコ</html>?" he asked again when I finished.\n\nI shook my head no. There was something in the way he had slaughtered that fish that unnerved me. "<html>モニ</html>?" I asked but he waved off any attempt at payment.\n\n"<html>ドリモ ナ</html>?" he asked.\n\nI thought for a moment -- I did not understand exactly what he meant, but I nodded, and he led me up the stairs to a simple stateroom. I murmured a thank-you and once again offered to pay, but he would have none of it.\n\n"<html>グド スレポ</html>," he said, and closed the door behind him.\n\nAnd just as I did not feel hunger in my belly til I set foot in this place, a sudden drowsiness came upon me, and I collapsed onto the bed without undressing. I can no longer recall the content of [[the dreams I had then]] -- it is [[what occurred once I awoke]] that will remain with me for all the rest of my days.
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Lady J-- had a knack for riddles that I simply did not possess. For instance: she sent me a grocery shopping list for navel oranges, gingerbread cookies, and currant tea and meant for me to understand: //I have grown as fond of you as you have me.// It took me a month to decipher this, and I count myself lucky for ever discovering her meaning.\n\n<<back>>
Zephyr had been my companion through many an adventure, and though he was beginning to grow a bit long in the tooth, I thought fondly of him.\n\n<<back>>
//An owl in darkness//\n//thought he heard//\n//another beside him//\n//(finally, finally)//\n//and asked://\n//who is it there?//\n\nHer handwriting was unmistakable. My mind whirled; [[I could make no sense of it]].\n\nThe guard asked above me asked: "Would you leave a reply, sir?" \n\nI thought a moment longer, then replied "nay," and [[I returned the way I came]].
I myself had only five hundred to my name, and I had given thought to tearing them down in favor of a more open and practical living arrangement.\n\n<<back>>
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"Some would say it is because she is afraid," the ghost-fish said. "But a wiser man would say you are just as guilty as she of riddle-making. But then everyone could be condemned on this account. Even fish lie. We form the world with our words. We turn it to its most pleasing angle; we turn it rosy pink with flattery.\n\n"Do you think she understands you?" the fish asked. "Do you think you prove as confounding?"\n\n"Yes," I said, but I was not sure which of the fish's questions I had answered. I began to explain myself but found I had no voice anymore; [[time seemed to freeze]] and everything grew dark in a moment --
<<if $smashed>>\nI left as quickly as I could. Though I had meant no one any harm I felt as though I had perpetrated an injustice on the inn's owners, wherever they may have been -- //if// they had been, even. There was something wholly unnatural about my experience. I felt as though it was not randomness that led me to the inn the night previous, but I could not fathom a purpose to it. There must have been a lesson to learn there, a moral to be imparted. And yet I had learned nothing.\n<<else>>\nI only felt a tiny knife-stab of guilt, leaving the fish there in that inn. What I had experienced the night previous was only a dream, I believed. It was too strange to have happened -- and, I felt I could not rely upon my memory one way or the other. I was happy to leave the inn behind; it was a strange experience all told, and I had the lingering feeling that there was a lesson or a moral I was meant to learn there, and I had not learned it.'\n<<endif>>\n\nI rode Zephyr back to Lady J--'s estate. It was not hard, re-orienting myself towards the castle, and navigating the trails that surrounded her land cleared my head. I knew then that I had to make a reply, whatever form it would take. It was my last chance. I knew this in my heart. [[I was not afraid]], however.
"Are you sure, sir?" the guard asked.\n\n"I am certain of it." It was a peculiar reasoning, but upon reflection, I thought she meant for there to be no answer at all to her riddle. And I wanted the riddles to end. I wanted us to speak freely, to touch without reservation. From the very beginning we had spoken in code. It was in our natures -- the very bits of personality that drew us together. But I wanted a new beginning.\n\nI returned the empty sheet of paper to the guard. He thanked me quietly.\n\n[[I never heard from her again]].
I wrote this story for you, Lady J--. I wrote it out as best I could, though I know it is inadequate. I do not understand its meaning, and I do not understand why we have done the things we did -- but this story must be told and we cannot change ourselves.\n\nI thought we could find a happiness together. I fear you have lost faith in me. I am terrified you have lost faith in yourself. But if there any lesson you can draw from this murky narrative, it is that however matters twixt us turn, no matter how you frustrate me, I shall be fond of you for-ever.\n\nI do not want these words to serve as our ending but they are all I have. I leave it to you to find new ones.\n\n-- This was how I closed my story to her. It was the best answer I could give her, and perhaps the only one that would let me rest easy. I returned the tablet to the guard. He nodded to me gravely, the first true measure of respect he had afforded me, and departed.\n\nOn the way home my mind remained blank. Not despondent, not even melancholy. Simply blank. I observed the sky, the clouds, the streams I had passed before -- everything was beautiful. It was as if I had been holding my breath a long, long time, and now could finally exhale.\n\n[[I never heard from her again]].<<set $written = true>>
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"We were caught when we were sixteen-months," the fish-ghost said. "We were so young we did not believe in death." As he spoke, he drew closer to me so that our eyes met. His mouth moved in quick flutters yet his speech was slow. It was almost hypnotic, listening to him. I did not know if it were magick or mere suggestion at work but I was transfixed.\n\n"The net was old and tattered and yet it held me no matter how hard I struggled. There was no escaping it. He drew us from the water and he imprisoned us. We could barely breathe in his water-box; we stared at the outside and dreamed of our mothers. We hungered for anything but to be confined. We hungered for death even and you gave it to us." \n\nI sat there thinking for a long time. The fish's thoughts ran counter to common sense but at length I began to understand. \n\n"There is little the dead can do for the living," the fish said, "and smaller still the favors a fish may grant a living man," he said. "But there are secrets we are told once our mortal bodies are gone -- and we shall tell you one. Whatever you wish."\n\nI was speechless, reader. I drew breath and without understanding why I asked:\n| [[Why does Lady J— only speak in riddles?]] |\n| [[Does Lady J— love me?]] |\n| [[There is a riddle I cannot decipher...]] |\n| [[Does my story have a happy ending?]] |
It is amazing, the lengths one will go to when solving a problem that he knows is unsolvable as opposed to merely difficult. It's a rush; a feeling that if one strives hard enough, he shall learn to break all laws, to bend all time. To create from whole cloth the world he always wished for but never possessed the words to describe.\n\n<<back>>
Perhaps this is when I have strained your credulity to its breaking point, reader -- in which case, I apologize, and hope you have found solace enough in the portion of the tale that preceded this event. I -- I sometimes doubt myself sometimes too. And yet in my mind, this incident has the feeling of memory, not fantasy.\n\n<<back>>
"It does," the fish spoke. "But then they are more common than you imagine. You will die in a country you have never seen before, where they speak a language that you would never be able to comprehend now -- and yet it will feel as comfortable and ordinary as your own home does now, and you will wish for stranger climes still."\n\n"But what of this tale? Of the riddle I must solve?"\n\nThe fish laughed, if you can imagine it; it was a horse's bray and a grammar school girl's combined. The laugh echoed onto itself and [[time seemed to freeze]] --
//What I didn't say was that strong feelings always make me skeptical at first. What else I didn't say was this his life seemed to be filled with things that were just like the ghost orchid -- wonderful to imagine and easy to fall in love with but a little fantastic and fleeting and out of reach.//\n\n-- Susan Orlean, //The Orchid Thief//\n\n<<back>>
The guard seemed to expect me. He did not ask my identity again, at the very least. He simply asked: "Have you a reply to-day, sir?"\n\nI said I did, and he lowered a quill and writing tablet to me. I thought for a moment, then, dear reader, I wrote:\n* [[An answer to the riddle]]\n* [[A riddle of my own]]\n* [[This story]]\n* [[Nothing]]
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Lady J-- had contructed a castle with [[a thousand walls]] for herself. Such a structure was at the height of its popularity then; the first hundred or so were designed to be practical defenses, though the county of Virginia was well-settled by that point and raiders were few and far between. But once you traverse that first gauntlet, the walls become decorative... iridescent... pearly, even.\n\nI made for the aleph gate and cried hoy.\n\n"Who goes there?" the guard standing watch asked, though he surely had already recognized me as I approached. I had been here before many a time.\n\n"I am Christopher St. Alexandre du Clemenceau, [[viscount of Chesterton-on-Avon]]," I replied. "I have come to pay Lady J-- a visit, if she would find my company pleasing."\n\nThe guard conferred a moment, speaking in low tones over the autotelegraph, and then spoke to me: "Lady J-- will have no visitors to-day."\n\nI was taken aback. There was some other force at work here, one I could not immediately fathom \n\n"Is she well, sir?" I asked.\n\n"Her health is fine," the guard replied. "But she will have no visitors."\n\nI almost asked, //Will she have them tomorrow?// but it was [[a jackanape]]'s kind of question, an idiot's inquiry, and I could think of no other thing to ask. I turned to leave, but the guard at last said:\n\n"She does, however, have a missive for you, sir."\n\nHe lowered a golden string that held an envelope identical to the one Lady J's original summons had come in. I took the envelope and looked up uncertainly at him. His expression was blank and unforgiving.\n\nInside was [[a cryptic message]].
"We think it strange you would ask us such a question," the ghost-fish said. "We do not believe in love -- we think it a word mortals use to describe something chimerical and [[fleeting]] -- a moment that is at essence nothing. And it is stranger still that you ask because you have known the answer for a long time. She loves you and maybe always will. Does it please you to hear it spoken aloud?"\n\n"Yes," I said. "I know in my heart she will never speak it herself."\n\n"You trouble youself over such trivial things," the fish spoke. "We wonder why you distract yourself so."\n\nI began to form a reply but the room grew black in an instant, and [[time seemed to freeze]]--<<set $loveme = true>>
Lady J-- found fish of all types repugnant; it was something deep in her psyche that could not explained easily, if at all. It was one of the few things we disagreed about. I found them peculiar but pleasing. There was very little in the ocean I disliked.\n\n<<back>>
I distrust myself, you see. I have made a fool of myself at court many times before by saying something inarticulately, or ill-thought-out, and so I have learned that silence can preserve so many things, least of all my dignity.\n\n<<back>>
Cold Dead Fish
I swear it upon my first uncle's very honor: there was a ghostly apparition hovering above my body. I could not tell the hour -- it must have been very late, judging by the absolute darkness I found myself in -- and though I admit I had not yet fully regained my waking faculties, I swear I saw it as true as the five fingers on my right hand. I saw it and yet it defied belief -- I saw a ghostly fish there.\n\nI drew the sheets closer to myself and asked, "What are you?"\n\n"I am dead," it spoke in a voice just above a hoarse whisper, "and I owe you a life's-debt."\n\nI recognized it then. It was the fish I had just consumed this evening. Its scales had become porcelain white and its black eyes grown to the size of dimes, though I still could not discern an intelligence behind them. It was -- [[unbelievable]]. It was absolutely unbelievable.\n\n"How is it," I asked, "That //you// owe //me// [[a debt]]?"
I wrote my answer carefully; though it was the best I could find, I still felt it wasn't enough. It just wasn't. But life is a story told the best way you can as you live it. There is no time for revision.\n\nThe guard said nothing, but then, I expected very little.\n\n[[I never heard from her again]].
An honorary title passed down to me by my grandfather. There was very little politicking, land-lording, or much of anything else to do in that town, and at any rate I had no aspirations to great titles. I worked as a clockmaker instead, and hoped someday to elevate my position through my works. For now, though, my fame was constrained by the small borough I called home.\n\n<<back>>
<<set $smashed = true>>I did it without thinking, without truly reflecting on what it would mean to see a score of fish lying on a bare wooden floor, all gasping for breath. I tried to think of what the ghost had told me, tried my best to believe that I was freeing them -- and yet I could not fully believe it. Their eyes were blank though I knew in their hearts they hated me. They were suffering, and it was not a quick sort of suffering. Perhaps only a few minutes and yet it seemed an eternity. I could not leave without until the last of them drew futile breath. They spasmed; they rolled. It was all my doing.\n\nI had done what I had done, and there was no going back. [[I left without a word]].
In an instant it was morning and I was alone again. I rose and dressed, wondering if all that transpired last night was a dream, or if I were dreaming still. My longcoat felt itchy and I knew I must leave as soon as I could.\n\nI was alone in the inn. I could find no trace of the Japanese gentleman who had fed me the night previous but this was a comfort to me. I do not know what I could have said to him if I had encountered him. The bar was empty and the glasses I had seen the gentleman polishing were gone. But the aquarium remained. The fishes swarmed to the side facing me. I wondered if they could see my face. I am ashamed of what I did next, my reader, for --\n* [[I smashed the aquarium]]\n* [[I left without a word]]
I related the message Lady J-- had left for me. The fish hesitated. "We are constrained. We may only advise you edgeways regarding the riddle-game --"\n\n"This is no game," I interjected.\n\n"But it is, and always shall be between men and women. You will never understand the riddle she poses to you. The language she speaks and the one you have learned shall never interweave. But there is an answer to her riddle and you already know it. You only lack the words to speak it. Perservere. You will never see her again."\n\nThe room grew dimmer and dimmer as the fish spoke, and when it had become completely dark, [[time seemed to freeze]] --<<set $riddle = true>>
I scribbled:\n\n//A fish whispers secrets//\n//A man dreams alone//\n//We cannot change this story's ending//\n\nI wanted to confound her for once. To reverse our fates. I was tired of playing our game. I returned the sheet of paper to the guard; he said nothing.\n\n[[I never heard from her again]].
It came in a plain envelope with no return address, though I recognized her handwriting immediately. Inside she simply wrote:\n\n//I've waited so long -- please come. I can bear it no longer.//\n\nIt was an uncharacteristically forthright sort of message for her, and besides, on its face it made no sense. It was I that had waited for her.\n\n<<back>>
<<if $written>>\nIt was -- not exactly a surprise. I hoped otherwise for a long, long time. But it was not a surprise, the way my life has turned.\n\nI have grown into an old man, and clockmaking has proven a steady profession for me. I have never feared I would go hungry, and yet it never provided to me the fame I sought. In my more philosophical moments I think I am better off for it.\n\nMy shop is full of my handiwork now. Each clock ticks at a different rhythm, an altogether incompatible inflection. It is such a clamor. Some days I can hardly think for the noise. But Lady J-- taught me that that is the way of the world. There is no reasoning sometimes. There is no music. It is just so.\n\nI am sorry, Lady J--. I am very sorry.\n<<else>>\nA week passed, and then a month; it happened so slowly to me. No reply came. A year came and went. Nothing. In time I learned to quash even the tiniest hope when the postman came to my door; it was futile, and it hurt. I imagined all sorts of reasons and excuses but there all for naught anyhow. I could not change anything and there was no point in trying to form a narrative without any pieces at all.\n\nI wondered for a long time if I had given her the wrong response. If this was a test I had failed -- for it surely was a test of some sort, whether given by Lady J-- herself or fate itself. I drew up [[massive diagrams]] trying to work out what she meant, and what she wished from me. It was bitter amusement; a mathematician playing in the dark.\n\nBut in time, I grew out of my melancholy. In time I became another person entirely, one for whom Lady J-- was a cloudy memory -- a story not even worth the trouble to tell. And perhaps this was the best ending I could have hoped for. Perhaps this was the ending she wished for as well but could not tell me. It was a mystery, and mysteries are eternal -- and comfortable.\n<<endif>>\n\n<html><b>∴</b></html>
//An owl in darkness//\n//thought he heard//\n//another beside him//\n//(finally, finally)//\n//and asked://\n//who is it there?//\n\nI answered:\n* [[no one]]\n* [[the darkness itself]]\n* [[the owl himself]]\n* [[the wind]]\n* [[an echo]]\n* [[another owl]]\n* [[a raven]]
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I knew not what to speak, what answer could be given here, so I thought it better to give none at all. Was this yet another test? Did I misunderstand her original epistle? I felt a fool.\n\nI knew the path home but I did not follow it; I heard dogs barking where there were none. Zephyr moved with an odd canter and before I had regained my wits it was dark. [[The world had turned cold]].\n\nIn the distance there was a piercing blue light, and I followed it, not even attempting to imagine [[what it could lead to]]. It was enough simply to see it, to be drawn to it. I believe I needed to be guided then -- and perhaps there was a force that saw me in my bewildered state. There is no explanation for what happened otherwise.
This was of course before the floods, when the Susquehanna Valley was a verdant landscape known for its flourishing deer population.\n\n<<back>>
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