How to drown on dry land

Lazarus has offered me the fish. He has been standing all night under the greenish light of the jetty, one line tethered, the other casting with long arms, out, out, past the blurry silhouette of his cousin’s canoe, which drifts in and out of my vision as the lights shift on the water.

The fish – his only catch tonight – is big, and glossy orange. It has been out in the air for a while, so there is no agonised leap, just the irregular slap of its tail on the wet boards. The fish has wide gills, which flash like a grinning accordion. Its one visible eye is rolling, and I step nervously, superstitiously out of its line of sight.

I don’t know what to say. There are so many ways that I could get this wrong. Is he offering me the fish for myself? I have been watching his technique, flicking quick questions. But I am also a guest of his boss, so it feels like the fish is a proxy gift – even possible that it has been quietly suggested that he should make the offer. I don’t want to offend him – but there is just one fish, and it defies my best logic to imagine that Lazarus has been out here all night for amusement alone.

I make a fluttery apology – I don’t know how to gut a fish, I can’t eat it after seeing it alive, it’s too big!

Lazarus does not have the impassive, polished face of indigenous otherness. Even in the darkness, I catch a stitch of politely contained opinion: he is not impressed, but whether this is because of my purported squeamishness, or whether he has guessed at my feeble cover, I can’t tell. Despite mutual goodwill, there is something tortured about our continued conversation – like twisting a sodden rope.

Under the jetty, the little fish dart in choreographed angles, swarming brightly, perfectly spaced like a wildly complex carousel in motion. The women have the hang of it – plucking the tiny fish skyward in a swift reflex that barely disturbs the dance. I have lost the rhythm of spontaneous kindnesses, I think. My impulses are off, out of time.

The orange fish is still gasping, wetly, spasmodically – helpless, and terminally out of its depth.