The Aquarium

It’s a concrete lot. It's an old factory right on the edge of the Western coast. It’s a shitty side building. It’s outside, mostly, sitting in oceans of rainwater. You’re stepping towards it, alone or accompanied. Your feet don’t quite hurt yet, you’ve just gotten out of the car. There’s children. Of course, there’s children. They’re swarming around their parents, kicking their feet in carseats, some already crying. You can’t quite decide if you like children. You think they’re loud, but that’s a given. You admire the persistence of childhood innocence and wonder. But they smell. And they’re mean unless they’re taught right. You think if you had kids, they might be just like you, and would that be a nightmare or would that be just everything? You love their laughter, you hate their screaming. Insistent, demanding, screams. The door handle is, of course, cold and sticky. It’s raining. It’s snowing. It’s a beautiful sunny day. Someone else opens the door for you. How romantic. You open the door for someone else. How courteous. A mom with a massive stroller, ready to steamroll you. How she must’ve struggled to wrench that thing from her midsize sedan. The thought cramps you for a second. You can’t picture yourself with a stroller. Or you can. Would you be as prepared as she is? With bags upon bags of Cheerios and Wet Ones and whatever else doomsday preppers stowe away in their baby bunkers? Would you have any help at all? The air conditioning is cool, of course. But you’re hot. You shrug off your heavy winter coat. Your rain jacket. Your sweater. You hold it, folded over your forearms like a priest or a waiter. It’s $20 admission. $20? You’re shitting me. Maybe you could pass off as a teenager? You don’t think so. It’s the hair. No sixteen year old would be caught dead with hair like yours. Every time you get a haircut, you’re worried the well-meaning hair dresser misinterpreted your request for a short, classy bob and instead gave you the Mom Cut. Elevated choppy back, lengthy aggressive front. Bangs. You approach the ticket counter, the person behind the glass is the meanest, kindest person you’ve ever said the fewest words to. They hand you your ticket. Your tickets. And you go to the wide, main area, lost. There’s a slight, young woman with a ponytail holding a stack of maps against her chest. She’s smiling, welcoming, of course. “Would you like a map?” You know, you know that you won’t use it. You know you’re going to willfully meander about, trying to figure out which doors hide secrets only for employees and which ones lead to the octopus. But she’s smiling and you’re weak, so you consent to holding another piece of colorful trash. You’ll stick the map in your bag and forget, until days later, as you’re cleaning it out, you’ll think about how a time ago, you would’ve saved it for the memories it held, tacked it to your wall along with concert tickets and play stubs, with gum wrappers and sticky notes. Now, it is trash. Let’s go this way, or there is no other way and the map is useless. That’s the truth about maps. Everything in this building was constructed for flow. The dark blue walls lead you from exhibit to restaurant to gift shop to exit. The pipes, the tanks, the filters; pumping and pushing water around fish, faking waterfalls and tidepools. You walk up to the first tank. It’s a swirling vortex of a hundred anchovies. Why on earth would they display anchovies? There they go, circling, head after tail, after tail of the fish in front of them. You see their eyes, wide and milky, twitching. You’re nothing but a shadow to them, and they know nothing but to run from shadows, and they have nowhere to run. You go to the next tank. Meaty, ugly looking fish. Big frowns. Sea bass, maybe? You think, “How long do I need to stand here and appreciate this fish?” When you’re at an art museum, you stand there long enough to look cultured. When you’re at a history museum, you stand there long enough to read the plaque. When you’re at the zoo, you stand there long enough to find the damn thing. You’re at the aquarium, and the fish are there, and there’s no plaque to read, and there’s no culture here. Just kids. Kids freaking everywhere. A little boy with wispy blonde hair, whiter than sand, pushes past you to press his tiny, sticky hands up against the glass. All he sees, all he knows, is movement and newness. His mother whispers cheekily, a little shamefully, “S’cuse us.” Maybe you don’t like parents. Of course, you can’t be mad. It’s a kid. Kids just want to see. And the mom—she’s just trying to entertain him. She just wants to show him. But you can’t help but feel a little defensive. You want to see, too, don’t you? Well, let’s go to another tank. You see one with a lot of color, an explosion of swishing tails; clownfish, blue and yellow tang, parrotfish, angelfish. Now, this is a fish tank. It’s big, too, for all the coral they’re growing. You like the ones you don’t recognize, with glittery little spots of color along their backs. Small ones, fast ones. You think they seem playful. They’re chasing each other. You wonder why. For the first time yet, on this visit, you feel yourself relax. You’ve noticed the rotating group of families has moved on to the next exhibit, and you’re in the sweet spot before the next big wave comes. You’ve noticed it’s quiet; the hum of parents chastising and chittering and the pitched squeals of children has decrescendoed to the other room. The only sound is the mechanical thrumming of cold water that pumps in and out of the tanks, and your companion telling you that you look like that rockfish right there. It has a grumpy, red face, just like you. Or maybe you are alone, and there’s no one there to tell you that you look like that rockfish—which you do—so you just look, and you don’t tell anyone that they look like the humphead wrasse with its big, blue lips and its thick brow and its dopey, wandering eyeball. You breathe in the mumble quiet. You look at fish. You see your blue reflection floating along with them, a warped and bloated you, trapped behind glass. You entertain the idea of being in open water, cradled by the current, watching fish come and go. When you were little, all you could think of was being a mermaid. You loved swimming. You loved the grace of it. You tested, every time you were in a pool, to see if you could magically control the water. Just in case. You would come to this aquarium, or another aquarium, and you would see mermaids with green tails and long brown hair swimming around coral spires and sifting through the sand for treasure. As you stand here now, you allow a little glimpse of a mermaid to look back at you, then because you’re out of practice, she disappears as quick as she came. The second big wave comes in fast, loud, strollers rolling. You hightail it to the next room. And there it is. The biggest, bluest tank in the whole place. It’s loud in here. It’s numb noise. It’s so big, it’s quiet. You get as close as you can to the huge sheet of glass. Everything is blue. Your skin, your hair, your shoes. A great big shark drifts slowly by and the crowd swells in awe. He’s a king among his people, graceful and gratifying. He is so high above you. A little girl near you goes meek at the sight of him, shoving her face against her dad’s knee. She won’t look up, no matter what her dad says to comfort her. He’s not doing a very good job. He’s doing the best he can. You want to help. You can’t. You try and think what you would do. You would probably do the same. You feel sharp little shark teeth bite at your eyes. You’re doing the best you can.