The Scuba Diver

James clipped a carabiner to his waist and took a final breath of crisp morning air. Everything was set: his regulator double-checked, tank secure, depth gauge ready. After more than a decade of diving, prep was second nature. Like setting up for a procedure at the office: every tool in place, every step methodical.

“Let’s get started,” he murmured, amused at the familiar rhythm. Only today, instead of a dental mirror and a suction hose, he had fins and an oxygen tank.

The water lapped lazily at the dock. No boats yet, no chattering tourists. Just the hush of early autumn. He pulled his mask over his eyes, rolled his shoulders, and hopped in.

The cold was a shock. A sharp, bracing jolt. But as he sank beneath the surface, the world quieted. His muscles unwound, breath steadying through the regulator. He hovered for a moment, eyes adjusting, tracking the pier’s algae-covered supports as they vanished into the blue below.

Simple dive today. The rocky outcrop first, then the sandbar reef. His niece had requested a sand dollar for her birthday, and Uncle Jamie planned to deliver.

Ten minutes out, half an hour to search, ten minutes back. Thirty feet down, plenty of air.

Kicking off, he moved effortlessly through the water, legs strong from years of running and cycling. The pier faded behind him.

The rocks materialized out of the murk. He pulled himself forward along the stone, careful and deliberate. Bubbles curled past his face as he peered into cracks and crevices. Then, he saw it. A familiar sliver of movement. He traced a finger in the sand, mimicking a fish.

A pair of eyes emerged from the darkness. The eel slinked forward, its eerie grin unmistakable.

“Hey, buddy,” James burbled through the regulator. “Brought you a fish.”

Unzipping his pack, he extended the offering. The eel darted out, snatched the silver fish, and swallowed it whole. Then it tilted its head, as if to say, Oh, hey, James. Long time no see.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s tourist season,” James bubbled back. The eel lingered a moment, then disappeared into the crevice.

See you next time, he imagined it saying.

James saluted with two fingers from the top of his goggles and checked his watch. Right on schedule.

The reef lay just beyond the rocks. It was the opposite of the kind in fancy travel brochures, with neon coral and fish like living jewels. Here, the colors were subdued, the stony coral worn in shades of beige and green. From a distance, it looked barren.

Up close, it teemed with life.

Tiny fish flickered in and out of crevices, each one hunting or avoiding being hunted. A few larger fish loitered, unbothered. A shrimp twitched its feelers. Sand erupted as a buried crab made a break for it. The whole reef was a machine, each part feeding the next.

James hovered at the edge, scanning the seafloor. Sand dollars weren’t always easy to spot. They liked to settle just beneath the surface. He circled slowly, methodically, ignoring the lazy glide of a harmless leopard shark overhead.

Twenty minutes of searching turned up plenty of urchins and sponges but no sand dollars. He checked his watch. Still some time. Buying one from a souvenir shop wasn’t an option. His niece would know.

On his second pass, he spotted it. A thin, pale edge poking from the sand. Bingo. He plucked it free, brushing away the grit to confirm: dead, brittle, perfect. A satisfied grin tugged at his regulator. He slipped it into his waist pack and turned toward the pier.

His first kick forward felt…off. Stiff. Cold had settled into his muscles, maybe. He kicked again.

Resistance.

His chest went tight. James glanced down.

Below him was a full commercial fishing net, ghostly in the murk, wrapped around his ankles. It was not a stray line or a few tangled strands, but a massive, discarded trawler’s net, the kind that swallowed entire schools of fish in one pass.

He watched in horror as the synthetic fibers blossomed around him like a floating, decayed veil. Its filaments wrapped and drifted, bloated with the remains of unlucky creatures in various stages of rot. The whole mass undulated in the current, like something breathing. Like something alive.

He kicked, hard. The net constricted. A second kick wrenched one fin free, but his other foot stayed tangled, and the movement of the net ensnared his right arm. His pulse hammered as he reached down, fumbling at the tough plastic fibers with gloved fingers. The movement sent the net drifting, turning, and then…

Something was in front of him in the net.

Something that had once been a dolphin.

James went still. The dolphin’s body swayed, skin a sickly, bloated gray. There were strips peeling where the net had cut deep, and one eye was missing. The other had gone cloudy and bulbous, too large for the socket. Its mouth hung open, jaw slack, rubbery tongue bobbing with the water’s movement.

Hi, Jamie, it seemed to say.

James locked his jaw and focused on his belt. The knife. He should have gone for it the second he got tangled.

Don’t you recognize me? It’s your old pal, Flipper.

His fingers scrabbled at the sheath. His right hand was trapped. The knife was on his right side.

Great of you to stop by, James. Misery loves company, you know. And buddy, we got plenty to go around.

He tried again, finally ripping the knife free. He gripped it so tight his knuckles ached and sawed at the fibers around his legs.

The dolphin loomed just beyond his reach, its gaping mouth flapping in the current.

Want to give me a hand here? James thought, slicing furiously.

No can do, buckaroo. I’m all tied up.

James kept cutting.

His caught a glimpse of his watch. Twenty minutes of air. Plenty of time, as long as he didn’t waste it panicking.

It was hard to cut with one hand. The net shifted constantly, drifting with the current, sawing into his skin. His right arm had long since gone numb, and his left ached from the awkward angle. But he was close. Just a few more desperate slices and–

The current surged, dragging James straight into the dolphin’s rotting body.

Its teeth scraped his cheek.

James gagged into his respirator, shoving the carcass away. His stomach clenched, bile rising.

His fingers clenched, too, and he realized with a sense of foreboding that the knife was gone. He hadn’t even felt himself drop it.

Oh, Jaime boyyyyy, the dolphin crooned.

James squeezed his eyes shut, counted his breaths. If he lost control, he was dead. His heart pounded erratically. Was this what a heart attack felt like?

A memory surfaced then, of his father’s funeral. Sitting in the front row, rigid, surrounded by bowed heads and sniffles. He hadn’t cried. Instead, something had bubbled up inside him, something dangerously close to laughter. It had clawed its way up his throat until he had to shove his fists into his mouth, had to press his face into his hands so that the mourners behind him would mistake the tremors for grief.

That same feeling threatened to rise now. His cheeks twitched. His head swam.

Keep it together, he thought.  

He dug his fingers into the net, testing the fibers. Too thick to tear. Maybe he could unwind himself. Maybe. His nails scraped, peeled back. He didn’t stop, unable to concede that he was stuck.

In his panic, he imagined his life flashing before his eyes. What would he even see? A happy childhood. A good education. The steady rise of his dental practice. No great tragedies. No great loves, either.

He furiously pulled at the net.

So what if he never married? The right person never came along.

Or maybe he never really looked. He’d always been skeptical of love. There were the easy parts, the laughing-through-a-movie, sharing-a-meal parts. It was the rest of it that scared him. The moments when someone realized he wasn’t all that impressive, that he could be impatient, overly sensitive, and just plain sad sometimes.

Who would want to stick around for that?

And if someone had, then what? A house. A yard. Kids who didn’t exist playing tag on grass he never owned, while he watched from the kitchen with a cup of green tea, an arm wrapped around a faceless figure wearing a gold band.

Pain flared in his fingertips. His nails were peeling away, but his arm was coming free. He was making progress.

More images, unbidden, as he wrestled with the net. Family dinners, bedtime stories, road trips, growing old. A lifetime of un-memories.

His breath hitched. His mind was too full. It was always too full. That was why he ran marathons. Why he dove into the ocean. To escape his own goddamn brain.

It’s okay, Jamie, the dolphin assured him. You’re one of us now. We’re like a traveling circus: dolphins, turtles, and James, oh my!

Black spots edged his vision. Hyperventilating. He couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.

Welcome home, James.

Laughter erupted. Not just from the dolphin, but everything in the net. A chorus of fish, giggling in unison. Their laughter vibrated through the water, shaking his skull, reverberating alongside the pounding in his ears. Through the cacophony, Flipper leaned in, conspiratorial.

Didn’t you want to run away and join the circus when you were a kid?

The voices grew louder, overlapping, swelling.

Be a good boy, Jamie, you’re going to miss the acrobats on the trapeze.

James clapped his free hand over his ear, as if that could block them out.

His chest burned.

He sucked in a breath and screamed. He screamed and screamed until his throat felt raw, until every last molecule of precious oxygen had been torn from his lungs.

When he stopped, it was quiet.

James’ chest heaved. He counted his breaths.

The net still held him. But the dolphin said nothing. James resisted the urge to punch it in its rotting face, just to feel like he was winning something.

At least it would be over quickly. Drowning took minutes. Maybe less. James considered it. He could bring his hand to his regulator, slip it from his mouth, inhale deeply and just let go. It wasn’t what he wanted, not exactly, but wasn’t it inevitable?

The dolphin floated beside him, silent now. Waiting.

No.

He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t done yet.

He flexed his fingers, felt the shredded tips of his nails. The net held fast, but it moved. It was a slow, insidious drift deeper into the blue. He pictured himself sinking forever, tangled in the mess.

He ran a hand over his leg, searching. No knife. Gone.

His free arm clawed at the net again, twisting, pulling, but it was useless.

Think, he told himself.

He felt something sharp against his wrist. The buckle of his watch, still strapped to his forearm.

James’ breath stilled.

It wasn’t much. Barely anything at all.

But it was something.

He yanked his watch off, gripping the metal edge between his fingers. Angling it. Pressing it against the net.

It wasn’t a clean cut. It was slow, awkward, his hands slipping, his body screaming, but the fibers began to fray.

Come on.

Come on.

The net jerked. A shift in the current. He saw the dolphin’s carcass rolling closer, its teeth glinting.

He saw the life he didn’t live. The children he never had. The house with the warm yellow light that never belonged to him.

He dug in harder. The fibers snapped and his arm tore free. Blood welled from his wrist where he had pressed too hard, but he ignored it, already reaching down, hacking at the net with frantic, brutal force.

Another strand gave way. Then another.

And then–

His legs kicked free.

James didn’t wait. He turned his body and swam, kicking with everything left in him. He felt the net brush against his foot, grasping like a phantom hand, but he kicked harder, making it into the open water.

He didn’t look back, he just swam.

Up. Up. Up.

The light grew closer. Rippling, Golden.

James burst through the surface, ripping the regulator from his mouth and inhaling a raw, gasping breath of fresh air. His lungs burned. His limbs were numb.

But he was alive.

The horizon stretched, empty in every direction. No boats. No land. Just water, endless and indifferent.

James let himself float, the sun warming his face, the salt stinging his lips.

Nothing to do now but breathe. And for once, that was enough.