B stoops over, scoops it up in His hands, it squeezes out, pops a plop, flubs on the deck, paddles planks. He stoops over again, scoops and again it wriggles free to what has to be its death, scaling the skin from His hands. And finally, with hands hardened with strength enough to fist it dead Himself were it a weaker fish and not a fisher of sorts itself, He bends and bows and holds it tightly, then rights Himself in pain against the slice of its fins. A slitting, the gut of His palm. Then, steadying against the ship’s pitch, its scuppering swish, holds the fish lip to mouth, staring depth into its one good mush of eye.
Nu, the fish says, after a moment graved gray within the jellied slough of its socket,
Three wishes you putz, mamash, the emes, but be quick about it.
He’d like to take His glasses from His face and wipe them and His eyes but how when you’re cradling such chub.
Genug, hurry up, I don’t have all day — what do you want, that I should swallow you…hahaha, and it coughs a gurgly bubble — joking aside, who has the time…your wish, it’s my command; you name it, it’s yours, simple as that, sof pasuk, pashut.
Work with me here! You’re new at this. I can tell, but I won’t. Ken zeyn, here’s the deal. I grant your wishes and, in return, you throw me over the side. Or else, keyne hora, and it winks that one appreciable eye, you’re out of luck, and I die of exposure. Maybe you’ll be one of the righteous, a tzadik — just place me in the water from a porthole, lower me down from the what do you call it, the gunwale, efsher…the last goy almost ripped my gills with his toss.
You with me? Farshteyn?
The fish flicks its tail. Wish I could help you, but it’s not mine to wish…
To tongue for a tongue, how I’m futzed.
Listen, I’m no prophet, no rebbe soothsayer…nit heint, nit morgen, what’s that they say, noch nicht — I’m only a prince who went wrong…
B nods in sad understanding and then, a dearth of them say three steps running rail to railing to put a pretense of momentum behind His throw, gives a sissying heave, mocking a hurl in return of the fish overboard, its sterling arc disappearing under the surface, a watery veil; then, with tailspray wholly disproportionate to its size, and perhaps, too, a little too late, soaking Him anew, as if to further mortify, if anyone would ever happen on deck, and if not, then in the eye of His God. The sun, a beacon of light cresting His head on its way to set yet again. A gloriole. To wait out the remainder of His passage, hanging Himself out on the rigging to dry, knot after the moon’s, His body an uncertain sail. To ship forward, though, without any idea of remainder, of passage, of future, and so denying any navigation, doubtful of any aground upon which to run, minding only the water until, having almost forgotten the very ideal of land, its ancient blind and deaf captain that is time, He arrives at doubt, which is itself without shore: denying the presence of a waterless world, a world that’s hard to the touch, that’s rough, too, and that when knocked knocks back ever harder.
At this, the ship — as if questioning its very substance — hits, slams, and He falls over the railing, tumbling into the air as the hoopy heap bumps, bucks then, rollickingly, steadies itself against a slip of wood drifting…on which He lands, from which He rises — a castaway from a ship wrecked on the shore itself for purposes of convenience and yet still, despairing, scared. Without romance, no liberate welcome. Only a pier, another port, another older here — it’s been a while, B, you’re next. To further image this disembarkation, corrigendum corrupting, we might offer this: that water cannot be stamped, but that land can be, and faces, and paper, too, a passport of His marked in the reddest available ink, predated beyond all comprehension. As for the land itself — it’s stamped with Him, arrived if only to fade…
