es.
Stick your whole fist in. My massive form gyrates underwater, turning
on the fulcrum of your divine fist. A delicate
flap of the small flippers that replaced my legs sends me spinning
slowly, like the gigantic propeller of a grand ocean liner. Even
in the hyper-controlled environment of the Tank I still get the
occasional barnacle. The pool boys who bring us our meals are quick
to unfasten the knives from their skinny hips and pry them loose.
The pool boys. Lovely pool boys, wee skinny lads with bright green
skin, thin arms and long, webbed fingers, they love to swim circles
around our loose-knit pod. They love to tease us by tossing the
more succulent cabbages to and fro while we salivate, thickening
the water before us. Speaking of which, where is lunch? I am several
pounds of seaweed and cabbage overdue. Still, the pool boy with
his arm immersed in my gulping anus provides a wondrous, tickling
distraction. I pause my slow-motion cycling and allow him to push
further in; my cavity contracts around his tight fist, tiny explosions
of sensation, starfish kisses, blow through my blubbery midriff.
And here come the cabbages! Rolling toward us like gourmet depth
charges. With a quick clap of my flippers I propel myself forward,
expelling my submariner servant. Nibbling at a round of cabbage
small specks of vegetable matter tumble away, fodder to the small
fishies that share our tank, behind me the pool boy floats forlorn,
massaging his suddenly uncaged arm.
Life in the Tank, you ask? It’s going just swimmingly,
dear. Bliss, a living dream. I float. I float and dine. The cabbages
are plump and firm yet come apart in my mouth like giant truffles.
And the pool boys. How they swarm about me. I roll in their precious
little arms, strong arms, excavating arms, I dare say. The joy
in a proper enema- that one lad, I love how his blonde hair wavers
above his head in the water like a fan of precious coral; I didn’t
even know he was in until the knob of his elbow elicited a small
shudder within my buttocks. You have to be careful, you know.
Going in without our full acknowledgement can be dangerous. I’ve
heard of lost limbs. Our sphincters are sizeable. Nearly as big
as our appetites.
But the Tank. It’s huge, of course. Huge. I once saw it
from the outside, in fact. A rare experience among my fellow
denizens, some of which, I hazard, do not know which city we
are in, or that we are even in a city. There are those who have
been in the Tank so long they have forgotten it is, indeed, a
Tank. They have given themselves over to the illusion in its
entirety. We have a phrase for this phenomenon, those who have
so completely disassociated themselves from their past are said
to be in “open water.” Lucky lucky lucky. I’m
sure some of them are faking. I’m sure others are not.
That big lumbering ox over there, I call him the Professor. Largest
of the pod, thick whiskers undulating below his puffy jowls,
he’s rumored to have been here the longest. I wouldn’t
know. No one would. We do not speak of the past. We do not share
names, nothing to ruin the surrender, the drift. After all, we
are all heading for “open water,” are we not? Why
spoil the ride.
But I came different. I was not yet among the impossibly
rich. But I was close, close to them anyway, I followed them
like a
pool boy, netting discarded trinkets in their wake. No, worse
than that. I was a bottom feeder, filtering their shit for morsels
of value, groveling for favor. That is what led me to the Tank.
I put one of them here. Well, not physically. As his lawyer I
handled the paperwork. Not even that. As his lawyer I hired the
accountants who handled his paperwork. I reviewed the reams of
release forms he had to sign for legal flaws. That’s where
my interest grew. That they could promise such things, take such
fortunes and still deliver. This I had to see. Not that you could
see it. The Tank is really a nondescript office building in the
old Garment District. It’s what’s in the basement
that is so damned interesting. The largest aquarium in the world.
A forgotten underground garage transformed into a vast playground
for aquatic voluptuaries, those aristocratic souls grown obscenely
bored, having decamped Paris for the moon then back again, still
bored. So what’s left the existentially obese? The Tank.
The Tank goes further: further retirement, total surrender to
the expansion of your baser needs. Here you can become a new
being, expanded to fully encompass obscene craving. Afloat with
designer taste buds, engineered to thrill at soggy lettuce, somersaulting
in your own excrement, the mind appropriately narrowed, focused
to fully grasp true need. I helped file all the necessary paperwork.
I inspected the site at his request. I saw bloated angels in
paradise.
I liked what I saw.
I must have drifted off to sleep. I try to forget that I was
once privy to the circumference of the Tank. Not that I knew
the exact dimensions. But obviously it could not have more
then the length and width of a typical city block. Quite possibly
it expanded under the street, but not for long, ancient subways
were nearby, after all. Depth, however, might not have had
such limitations. Still, like everyone else here, I feel as
if I am adrift within an endless sea. That’s part of
the design, our design. Among our many neural alterations is
a curvature in our sense of direction; all of our movements
actually take us at an angle, exaggerating our chosen direction.
I could swim deliberately for hours in what I think is a straight
line and never come into contact with the concrete wall I know
is there. Not all of the changes are so subtle: we are, after
all, huge. Wondrously finned for rotation and playful swimming,
taste buds teased and excited to the point where everyday cabbage
and seaweed elicits the ecstasy of a seasoned gourmand. Sexual
ecstasy has been equally enhanced, and rightfully internalized.
We are all floating eunuchs in the Tank. Stripped of our sex
organs, de-wired, the pesky sensation-seeking nodules and nerves
transplanted where they always belonged, up our asses. The
ecstasy of eating leads to the ecstasy of excreting. Heaven.
Brown heaven. Not that the heft of roughage we put away each
day needs much prodding, but the pool boys fancy the idea of
a friendly enema by way of the occasional nutritious depository…..delicious
pool boys knuckling loose my waste, massaging an internal orgasm
that sets me spinning for hours.
I whistle a greeting to Ol’ Blue Eyes. Singing to himself,
he nods a patrician consent. I’ve assigned names to most
of my rotund brethren and wonder if they have done the same.
Or does such frivolous nomenclature keep one from reaching “open
water?” Who cares. Ol’ Blue Eyes simply whistles
more than the rest of us, beautifully so, hence the name. Sound
travels strangely underwater, looping and turning like blown
glass, expanding until what I imagine I am saying actually sounds
like an elongated bellow. Yet another change to our brains -we
understand each other innately. My first day in the Tank felt
like every other day since: fully acclimatized, at ease, a complete
understanding of my surroundings. Bliss. I do not think the pool
boys understand what we say, however. But they do a good job
of smiling and nodding and waving. Look, two of them armed with
long scrub brushes, chasing after Ol’ Blue Eyes. Lucky
lucky lucky. He is going to get a good scrubbing. He’ll
bask in the attention, but it won’t interrupt his song.
Of course I have no idea how long I have been in here, but that’s
the point, silly. But since I’ve been in, and I am comfortable
guessing it has been about a year, he has been singing the most
exquisite song, full of bursting underwater arias segued between
the softest, most sublime interludes, a year long opera of excrement.
Ol’ Blue Eyes sure loves to shit.
What was my client’s name? Oh yes, Norman. Norman.
Norman was not going to be a typical Tank Dweller, no. Norman
was not
looking for underwater nirvana, Norman was looking for a place
to hide. Of course I did not know his crime. I knew enough not
to ask and Norman had enough respect for my profession not to
volunteer any information. Norman needed to hide and knew enough
not to go off-world. Everyone who wants to hide goes off-world.
Cults are always good, but you still have fingerprints in a cult,
or at least most cults, and DNA. No, Norman was very smart. He
was smarter than me, or at least he knew more about certain things
than I did. I had been in the service of the very wealthy for
nearly a decade, since law school. I thought I knew everything.
Norman showed me that there is a world where the merely very
wealthy look like paupers, a world that contains the Tank. And
joining the Tank, taking the plunge, as they say, is more then
a few days of surgery and deep genetic alteration, more than
slicing on a few gills and rolling you into the water. To change
your skins’ adaptability to water, your organs and whatnot
to such a change of environment, you had to alter a person’s
DNA, and if or when human form is returned, the slightest of
alterations remain. Thus, the perfect escape disguise coupled
with a perfect disguise. Now, like I said, most people who take
the plunge do so as a form of further retirement. They are not
just bored -they are bored with being human. But there are a
few who wish to experience the Tank for only a short while: a
year’s rest and nothing more. This was going to be me.
Or should I say Norman. He transferred a significant amount of
money to my account. More money than I ever imagined I would
have in my account. And all I had to do was take the plunge.
Except that Norman would take the plunge in my place. The plan
was for me to go to the interview wearing a biological hologram
of Norman’s DNA, so important for identification as well
as the procedure. As I exited the taxicab I applied an aerosol
that for a short time overlapped my DNA with Norman’s.
The interview was extensive, but so was my coaching. I had traveled
near enough to these circles to easily adopt the attitude of
their typical client. I had even ingested a small amount of synthetic
heroin for effect. Accepted, I would sign a contract for a year’s
immersion, a vacation, really, a taste of retirement before I
fully commit. Not unheard of. What was unheard of, at least in
all likelihood for Norman’s sake, was that I would like
what I saw on my initial inspection. Really like it. Like it
enough to forgo the biological hologram but take his money. And
once payment was made and the date had been set wherein I, or
I should say my doppelganger, was to enter the tank, I arrived
an hour early and thus before a surely befuddled Norman, changing
my contract to a lifetime commitment. I had been holding the
door open for rich people long enough. I figured it was time
for me to go first.
I awake floating on my back. I think I dreamed of cabbage. I
am not sure, though. A soft curtain of wavering light filters
through the green mist, shades of green darken below me, yellowing
above me, undulating at either side. A tight spear of small orange
fish shoots by. Rolling over I hear Ol’ Blue Eyes in the
distance, singing lightly in his sleep. A few others have gathered
near a fresh crop of cabbage, I swim their way. The thought of
dining on fresh cabbage causes my full bowels to quiver in anticipation-
imminent release. I pick up the pace. Fat slivers of a new, dark
seaweed float among the slowly unfolding balls of cabbage. I
deftly slip past the Professor to slurp up an appetizing strand
and, finding it to my liking, lap up another. A school of pool
boys bob in the distance, waiting to attend us after the feast.
My stomach grumbles as my rear yearns for a probing hand.
I wonder whatever became of Norman? I know that the people
who were looking for him wanted badly to find him- I hope he
knew
it was okay to stay at my apartment -I didn’t need it anymore.
Or maybe he’s here. That one over there is kind of new,
the big whitish one. I will call him Ahab. Maybe he has already
started calling me Ishmael. Who cares. Not like this was the
only Tank. I was shocked that there were so many Tanks. Some
of them were off-world, orbiting satellites. Imagine that, circling
the planet, a necklace of tinfoil globes filled with designer
aquatic mammals excited wholly in their own defecation…evolution
is a wondrous thing, is it not? I was shocked to discover there
was a preserve in Madagascar where one could become a sloth.
I guess that was for people who can’t swim. Well I have
bigger problems. Today I drifted away from the others. It is
nice to just drift, when I thought I saw a shark. I know, I know,
impossible. This is the most benign environment in the universe,
right? For the longest time I thought it was another member of
our pod, on his own off in the distance. But we tend to float
about and this shape was stationary. In trying to discern who
it was I gave it a hard look. But no matter how hard I tried
to see who it was I could only make out the haziest of shapes.
As I drifted closer I thought I could see a dorsal fin, black
and sharp, a knife poised above the creature. And then there
was a sudden shift in the light, green went to blue and then
back again, and the shape was gone. And it’s not like I
can raise my hand to tell the teacher. I don’t have hands
anymore. And there are no teachers. This is a self-sustained
utopia (oh aren’t they all?). Swimming quite quickly for
my tonnage I sought the comfort of my indifferent pod.
One more thing about the office building above the Tank, of
course it was nondescript, that should be expected. Another boring
compendium of glass and not-much-imagination left over from the
Twenty Second Century, at first glance, that is. Windows and
panels and mirrors and the above ground floors of the many-storied
buildings existed solely to draw and refract sunlight toward
the Tank. A measured amount of light pours in, the rest is stored,
reserved for the banished night. There is no night-time in the
Tank, just permanent twilight. An emerald sunset pulsates around
us, our frolic endless.
No pool boys so far today. Do they have the day off? Is there
a holiday specifically reserved for submerged cabana boys? My
fat fraternity seems unconcerned, as they should be. Enough deteriorating
cabbage still floats about the Tank. I want to dive. I want to
submerge deeper into the Tank but every push downward, no matter
the strenuous exertion I find myself relatively even with the
pod. But I crave the shadows, the limitless, undefined darkness
below. I tire of this lukewarm temperature, this constant constancy;
it must be cold below. But surely not safe. A surge of bubbles,
white torpedoes descend…here come the pool boys! Wide smiles
and long scrub brushes, I roll over. Stomach exposed I luxuriate
in their pending attention. This and some more of that black
seaweed will set me singing. A tight spear of small orange fish
shoots by.
[END]
© 2005 Tom Cardamone - Contributor's
Bio
