Blue Road to Atlantis

Chapter One

WATER IS LIFE. When it is warm, I am warm. When it is cool, I am cool. When it is clear, I am blessed with the vision of a seagull. When it is cloudy, I am blind. It passes over me as a salty abluent and cleans me in its shimmering beauty. It soils me too. It brings me the air that I breathe and the food that I eat. One day, I will be the food that it brings to feed another. The sound of water is silence; the sound of silence is the hum of posterity. The movement of water is stillness; the stillness is the current, the drift and the everlasting roll. Sound within silence and movement within stillness. And always, always, respect for the current. The ocean's current as well as the current that stirs within each of us.

I fly through the infinite, blue water as birds fly through the infinite, blue sky. After all, water is sky.

Compressed sky. One cannot exert pressure on water; pressure goes right through it and is dispersed. To pressurize water, it must be contained. But contained water is no longer water at all. Just as a spirit held under the thumb of another—or under the thumb of its own fears—is not truly a spirit, merely a stifled cry. Just so, the authentic water in this world of ours is the oceanic water and none other.

In the water, I have never felt any separation. It is my mother, father and life source. I am its child, its precious child. Call me Fishmael.

I am now old and gray, but even when I was young and gray, I always dreamed of imparting to others my world of the sea. It is my heart I offer. I am called a remora. Some call me a marlinsucker, but I have always detested that word. It implies things about my relationship with the Old Fish that are not the case.

I remember the day that my father informed me that I would be spending most of my life attached by my head to a marlin. At the time, I must admit, I considered the plan lacking in initiative. But my father showed me the oval-shaped groove at the top of my head and explained the concept of the suction cup. And he told me that he had lived on a marlin, as had his father before him, and I take no pause in proclaiming it a good relationship. A mutual relationship. I am no parasite, let that be clear. I clean the Old Fish's gills and skin, and in return, his skin-filth is my food. It is not my only food; marlin are notably sloppy hunters and feeders. The leftovers from his magnificent hunts are delicacies that, alone, I could never enjoy—octopod, small squid, filefish, crab, balao, mackerel, tuna— a pretty rough lot. Some might call it an uneven trade, but the Old Fish, he understands. He is my teacher.

Each to his own place, says the Old Fish. For he who knows his current and swims within it, prosperity is inevitable. Do not fret about who swims above you and who swims below. All swim above some and below others, except the flying fish, and they usually wind up on the bottom of some skiff with a stupid, surprised look on their face. Even the mighty sperm whale loses when he ventures too deep and suffocates in the tentacles of the giant squid.

Of course, the Old Fish did not always follow his own advice. It has been many years, and much water has since passed beneath our fins, but I still remember the day the Old Fish lost his beloved Migdalia to a fisherman's hook. A fisherman who proclaimed himself El Campeón, who dragged our poor Migdalia brutally from the water, though he knew full well that she would die in the air. After that, the Old Fish sounded into the depths of the ocean for years. Of course, I went with him. But that was long ago and today, we again swim in warm, lighted waters.

He is an old fish, massive and splendid to behold, with a broad purple back that fades to royal blue atop his head, and twelve lavender stripes that adorn his silver sides. His spear alone is bigger than most fish. His carriage is regal. He swims with majestic grace. He is the jewel of the seven seas.

His age does him honor. Age is a great accomplishment in the sea, where predators appear out of a blue cloud in the blink of a nictitating membrane. There is no drama to death in the sea; one moment one is there and then one is not. Families do not mourn; they scram. But the Old Fish has not cheated death. No, he has given it more than fair opportunity to take him. But he has always been stronger, faster, smarter.

And now in his old age, so revered is he that not a single fish would dare to challenge him. Even the sharks-mako, hammerhead, white—all respect him. The vulgar tiger shark, who feeds on everything including other tiger sharks, defers as we swim past. Only in the depths do enemies still exist for us... and of course, on the surface. Fisherman. The bane of Neptune's Kingdom. Why must they come out here? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Only an alien could so romanticize a land. Can they not see how ill-suited they are to the sea? When God wanted to finish them all off some time ago, what did He use? Drought? No, flood. If they need to hunt, why can't they hunt their own, as we do?

Today we are returning from our trip to the African coast. We had followed the frosty Benguela Current for days, my scales raw and frozen to my sides. Hearing my denticles chatter, the Old Fish had suggested that I suck onto his belly, but I declined, knowing that work would keep me warm. Yesterday, we finally emerged from the cold and were able to pick up the warmer Brazil Current. From here, we will follow the Pangean Fracture Zone, veer south around Cuba, catch the Caribbean Current and follow the Caribbean Basin to the Florida Current—our beloved Gulf Stream. Ah, the Gulf Stream, a raging river in the middle of the ocean. One barely needs even to use a fin in the Stream, as long as he follows the current. I am anxious to return to those warm, clear, sky blue waters.

But for now the water, though shallow, is still murky green. We pass a cleaner station, where blennies dart in and out of the gills of a nurse shark, who lies passively on the seabed as they work. She opens her mouth and four blennies swim in to clean the inside. It always amazes me that they can get away with that, swimming into the mouth of a shark, but such is their current. A school of coneys overtakes us excitedly, which fills me with anticipation. Sure enough, in time we see the huge mossy rock where the coneys gather by the thousands. We call it Coney Island, and I pull up alongside the shimmering, vertical stripes of the Old Fish to ask if we will be stopping to feed.

"Please," I urge him. "When will our next chance come to enjoy the footlongs?" But he is not paying attention.

"Te lo juro por mi madre, Fishmael," he is saying. "This is the year I do it. This is the year I make pilgrimage to Atlantis."

I have heard this vow for years. "Yes," I reply dutifully, "this is the year."

"My current has led me many places, and always I have followed it faithfully. I have heard the call of Atlantis since we were young, Fishmael. Why something has always appeared to complicate matters and keep me from going, I cannot know. But this is the year."

"This is the year." I am still looking back over my dorsal fin toward the coneys.

"This is the year we swim past the complications, confusion and Sargasso weed; across the river and into the trees of the Narrows of Bimini, and seek out the Great Spotted Dolphins of Atlantis. And on the blue water of Atlantis, the Great Spotted Dolphins will teach me the sky, the air that until now I know only in the fleeting dreams of a jump. And when I attain Atlantis and know the sky, I will share my wisdom for the benefit of my brothers of the sea."

The gaze of his enormous, round eye has drifted far into the distance. Though I no longer believe that we will be going to Atlantis in this or any other year, I admire the Old Fish. His dream never dies, and this is the true source of his beauty. Outshining his two Aegean blue dorsal fins, tougher than his thick, granular flesh, more complex than the hexagonal scales imbedded in his silver flanks and darker than the deep purple of his back, his dream of Atlantis has been the Coriolis force of his life.

For days we swim in silence, following the current over reefs, cones and plateaus, toward the Gulf Stream. Around us, the ocean is alive. A glorious opah nods as she passes us. Her seductive, red lips puckered in a perpetual flirt, she offers the traditional greeting: "Swim with the current, boys."

"Swim with the current," we reply.

Beneath us, tiny wrasses and blennies skip through the coral in search of food. We swim away from the reef. We too are hungry, and the Old Fish will not find any food of substance near the reef. I point out a variety of catfish sifting through the sand below. Gafftopsail catfish, hardhead catfish. The Old Fish is not interested. Fat snook, seahorses, slippery dicks.

"I see a school of timucu," I say. "Too small."

This is always a source of tension between us. I can make a meal of anything, but the Old Fish is huge. The bigger the fish, the more it takes to fill it. The Atlantic blue whale ingests a million calories a day. And it shows.

It is getting dark. Neon green moray eels cautiously emerge from their lairs to begin their hunts. I see an octopus far below us, sliding along the reef, through narrow fissures, looking for prey. I know what we are waiting for.

"Tuna?" I ask. The Old Fish smiles. "Yellowfin. I have been craving it all day."

We dive a bit deeper. Tuna seek cool waters when they sense a predator nearby. Somehow, they are able to stay warm even in cold water, which helps them to outswim us.

"Isn't it getting too dark to hunt this deep, Old Fish?"

"You may wait for me above," he says gently. "I think I just saw a viperfish." "Relax, Fishmael. There are tuna nearby; I sense it.

We will catch a big one then return to the surface. There are no vipers here."

I hate it down here. Though we are not nearly as deep as I am imagining, our years in the depths have left me permanently scarred. In the depths, where food is a rare and unpredictable occurrence, the predators are of a fierceness that the fish of the suburban thermocline cannot even imagine. I see viperfish everywhere. I see their hideous, gaping maw and silver, crushed-glass eyes. They are the perfect predator, designed specifically to create death in the world around them. Curved, wretched fangs, so long and sharp that they are biologically incapable of closing their mouth. Jaws that open so wide they can devour a fish equal in size to themself. A heart that actually retracts during feeding, so as not to get in the way. And an insidious organ deep inside their throat that emits a soft, bluegreen light, to lure prey. It is not their fault. Too many years evolving in deprivation, it could happen to anyone. But while I never see anything but the viper, the Old Fish never sees anything but the tuna.

"Come on," I plead, "let's get out of here." But as I am speaking, the Old Fish accelerates upward with an astonishing burst of speed. He explodes into a school of tuna twenty fathoms above us, swiping his spear wildly back and forth. As always, I seek shelter in his gills and hold on as he stuns and smashes a half-dozen yellowfins. The survivors scatter to save themselves, abandoning their dead and injured. As I have said, we are not among God's more gallant creatures. The Old Fish circles around and I stagger from his gills in time to see him take a dead tuna broadside, with such force that it folds in half as it disappears into his mouth. He takes a second one head first, and spits a piece of flesh for me.

For the rest of our swim along the thermocline toward the Gulf, the Old Fish is quiet. As we reach the western shore of Cuba, he slows and turns to me.

"I thought I heard cheering in my chest, Fishmael, as I was hunting the tuna. Were you cheering for me?" "Of course."

"Please do not. It is unseemly to cheer the demise of others. If we lose, another survives." "What if you are fighting an evil fish?" "Then you may cheer, if you are sure it is I who is good and the other who is evil." "You are always good."

"I am no better than my appetite; others are no worse than theirs. The cookiecutter shark I killed in Africa simply wanted to attach to my flank and bore out plugs of flesh to eat. Good and evil are phantoms, Fishmael; there is only desire, obstacle and appetite."

"Some appetites seem insatiable." "True enough." "What if you were fighting the Red Tide?" I ask, thinking of the rumors of a Red Tide advancing from the South Pacific.

The Old Fish laughs softly. "Red Tide kills millions. Should it ever be within my power to fight it, then you may cheer."

The sun is rising as we reach the western shore of Cuba and flow into the Florida Current. There is no wind. The sea-ceiling is still, and through it I see a blue sky. We rise to two fathoms, to feel the rays of sun that pierce the water and fan out over us. Honeycombs of sunlight dance across the coral and the Old Fish glances at me with mischief in his eye. I suck onto his pelvic fin, knowing he is about to leap.

But just as he curls his mighty tail, a fisherman's hook plops into the water. We have not been fooled by a baited hook since the one that stole our dear Migdalia, so we simply watch it as it descends past us. Amateurishly baited, the skewered sardine washes off the hook and they part company, the hook sinking, the fish rising. As the sardine floats toward us, the exposed silver point of the hook nicks a marlin egg that had been floating freely. A tiny droplet of oil seeps out of the egg, draining its buoyancy, and the egg too begins to sink. I am horrified by the sight of the defenseless egg sinking toward the aphotic zone, and as I eat the sardine, a panicked female marlin appears and sounds after the egg. A young marlin—her son, I assume—follows close behind. The Old Fish inverts himself, aiming his head straight down, and I latch onto his tail.

He follows their downward path, all of us now trying to overtake the egg before it wanders into the depths. My gills are flooded by the onrushing water, and in seconds we are enshrouded in darkness. As our eyes adjust to the grim surroundings, I see a faint blue-green light rushing toward us.

The mother and son confront the excited viperfish before we arrive. Only the mother floats between the viper and the egg. The viper's eyes are wide and crazed, aroused by the scent of the egg. In the light of those eyes, I see it kill her quickly. Eggs are the rarest of delicacies in the depths; the viper cannot afford to be denied.

The boy flashes toward the egg, but is thumped away by the Old Fish, who squares himself to the viper. As always in moments of stress, his gills flare. As always, I scurry inside.

Peering out, I see a crowd begin to gather in the outer shadows. It is a terrifying circle. Spinythroat scorpionfish, dragonfish, giant squid. As a child, I had nightmares about coming home to surprise parties like this. A stonefish-the deadliest fish in the world—notices me in the Old Fish's gills and winks.

I motion to the boy to protect the egg and he gathers it to him and stays near the Old Fish.

Though I am concerned, I have seen the Old Fish do battle in the depths before. After Migdalia died and we sounded, war was like food to the Old Fish, and every day he sated his hunger.

I will never forget the day Migdalia died, when El Campeón tore a hook into her lovely mouth. Even now, I cannot think of the day without a pang of death in my heart. She was so gentle, her soul so still. Whenever the turbulent sea left me muddled and scared, I would go to her. Just being with her would calm me. "Hush, Fishmael," she would whisper, "it's only water."

As El Campeón trawled her mercilessly through the sea, the Old Fish stayed with the skiff the entire time, hiding his anguish from Migdalia, bodying up to her reassuringly. And when El Campeón finally ended her torture —plunging a gaff into her heart and pulling her into his skiff—still the Old Fish swam alongside. He could not abandon his Migdalia, but neither could he bring himself to jump, afraid of what he might see. Finally he jumped, me clinging to his belly, and we saw. Migdalia lay on the floor of the skiff, her eye dead and gone, her dazzling colors drained gray. The Old Fish did not say a word, but his mournful whimper broke me. His heart died that day no less than hers, and we sank for years into the depths.

There, he devoted himself to becoming the fighting equal of any deep-sea predator. He was and remains the greatest swordsman in the sea. So as I peer out now at our enemies, I am not afraid. We have survived the six-thousand-fathom Challenger Deep in the South Pacific and we lived through the Great Depression in the Indian Ocean. We will not die here.

This is why we learned the depths, so that we never again need fear the chaos of the sea; so that we could defeat any foe. We could have simply traversed the globe after Migdalia's death, but the Old Fish said there was nothing more to learn by swimming wide, that we must go deep. There is more water beneath every square foot of surface than one can imagine, and we have already found our light in the aphotic zone. No, we will not die here. As the Old Fish says, there are only two secrets in battle. One: Never be the last to know that a fight has begun. And two: Assume defeat but commit to victory. I have never quite known what that means, but he always wins, so I accept it.

The viper glares at us through its silver eyes, aghast that any fish would interfere with its hunt. With a hiss, it aims its gruesome fangs at the Old Fish and charges. The two smaller fangs that extend horizontally from its upper jaw pierce the skin of the Old Fish and tear out a line of flesh. Clearly, its heart has moved out of the way.

The Old Fish swipes with his spear and pounds the right flank of the viper, but it has little effect. The long, curved fangs of the viper lash back at the Old Fish and pass within inches of my cove. Suddenly, the Old Fish pauses. I have seen this pause before, whenever the savvy old warrior finds weakness within his enemy's greatest strength.

I cannot imagine what he has just realized, but now the Old Fish baits the viper, showing his meaty broadside. I am staring directly at the viper as it charges, its jaws wide. Just as it closes in, however, the Old Fish spins his giant body into an inversion, placing himself above the viper. With all of his might, he thwaps his spear down upon the viper's head, driving its jaws together. Each set of fangs impales the jaw opposite, and the viper's mouth is closed forever.

I enjoy the expressions of astonishment around us, as the viper swims away, harmless as a seahorse. The Old Fish always tells me that justice is too rare a dessert to be expected in a sea of saltwater. He says to expect dessert is to ruin the meal. But the taste of justice lingers sweet in my mouth today, and I savor it as I watch the viper disappear into the darkness. Evil is a current too, I think, albeit a vertical one.

BACK IN THE LIGHT, the Old Fish sleeps as we pass the Gulf of Mexico. The orphaned marlin swims absently along with us. Though the current is with us, the swimming is slow, with the Old Fish asleep and the young marlin laboring with the egg tucked under his left pectoral fin. The child's eyes are elsewhere. There is no drama to death in the sea, but the aftermath—the abandonment—is the shock of a stingray's barb, as the poison of loss seeps slowly in. Loss is the sadness, not death. Death is an unplumbed mystery. Erosion, transformation... who can say? We know less of it than we know of the other side of the sea-ceiling. But of loss, we are well informed. We pass the survivors every day. Most of us are survivors ourselves. Loss is the piecemeal death of those still alive. Some endure; some do not. Angelfish do not. They mate for life, then die within a day of each other.

The young marlin will live, though he is not exactly sure what that means anymore. Outwardly, he is neither angry or upset. But the waters of a shifting current are turbulent. The adjustment is a struggle. And now he must choose: Does he accept his change of circumstance, or does he swim against the inevitable tow until his fins tire and he is swept into a new direction nonetheless? It is often easier to realize one's current than to submit to it. Periodically, he glances at the egg.

It is his responsibility now. I ask him his name. "Jotaro," he answers. "You will swim with us now, Jotaro." "I will swim alone."

"And do what for food? Your spear is not yet grown. You cannot hunt."

"I do not care." "Then consider the egg. When it hatches, it will need food."

Jotaro does not answer. He is willful. He has decided to grow up, and seems to be experimenting with the current of the tortured loner. This would sadden me. We have all been bitten, abandoned and tagged; it does not excuse us our civic love. Worse, the current of the tortured loner reeks of conscious choice. A current is not something to choose; it is something to embrace when it chooses you.

By the time we reach the Gulf Stream, the sea is an eddy of gossip. Sound travels fast in water, especially when that sound is a rumor. Word of the Old Fish's heroism precedes us, and as we glide into the Florida Straits, we are cheered. The Old Fish smiles magnanimously to the thousands of fish surrounding us, and I bob my head in acknowledgment. Though my part in the rescue was less flamboyant, my role in battle, as I understand it, is to stay out of the way. I take this responsibility seriously.

"Float like a jellyfish, sting like a jellyfish!" someone shouts.

"Three cheers for the Old Fish!" Next to me, Jotaro is scowling.

The Old Fish beams, though he tries halfheartedly to deflect the praise. "Brothers," he says, "please. I did nothing that any of you would not do." "Other than triumph," a jawfish mumbles through the eggs brooding in his mouth.

"How did you do it?" asks a glassy sweeper.

"The viper is not invincible." The Old Fish shrugs, but stops speaking suddenly and looks into the distance. A massive, black cloud is rushing toward us. It is a school of hammerhead sharks, hundreds of them, swimming in a tight, dark formation. I feel my body stiffen as I watch them approach like an oncoming storm.

The hammerhead looks vaguely like a bull shark that has swallowed a ship's anchor. With their eyes protruding from the sides of their T-shaped heads, they have no forward sight, and the school nearly crashes headlong into the crowd.

"It's coming!" one of them cries. "We have spotted the Red Tide off the south coast of Africa! It is sure to be here within two weeks!"

Panic sweeps through the crowd. Red Tide is a rare phenomenon, said to originate with the ripening of a mysterious coastal plant. It drifts relentlessly forward for hundreds of miles before dispersing, carrying a deadly bacteria that suffocates every fish in its broad path. The last Red Tide killed twenty million, approaching as a lovely pink bloom and leaving a wake of silence behind. We have always been helpless against it. But then again, as an anonymous voice in the crowd points out, we have always been helpless against the viper as well.

"The Old Fish will save us!" someone shouts. "Yes, the Old Fish!" "Save us, Old Fish!"

Within seconds, the Old Fish is elected president, king and congressman. He is still being unanimously elected to a variety of offices when he protests.

"Calm down," he orders. "Have you lost your wits? I am but a fish; I cannot stop the Red Tide."

"You defeated the viper!" "The viper is but a fish." "I move the Old Fish be elected apex predator!" "I second the motion," says a tiny seahorse, glancing back over each shoulder, "but will speedily defer to any orca that might object." "I elect the Old Fish Neptune's voice!" "Second."

"I propose the Old Fish be elected gravity!" "Second."

"Brothers, this is insanity. We do not even know that Red Tide will ever get here. One wind shift and it is irrelevant."

"A steady wind and we are dead!" An aged mako emerges from the mob. I recognize her as a friend, one we swam with once, and have since passed in open waters countless times. "Old Fish," she implores, "you can do it. We believe in you."

"Even the biggest and strongest fish is still but a fish," the Old Fish answers. "I wish I could do as you ask. It is my life at risk too."

"Try," the mako pleads. "If you are right, we will all die, as we will do if you refuse to try. But if you are wrong—"

"I cannot be wrong." The mako pauses. There is genuine wonder on her face.

"If you believe that, then how can you be but a fish?"

The Old Fish sighs and looks to me. I nod. The mako is right. If anyone can save us, it is the Old Fish. He turns to the hammerheads. "How much time do we have?"

"Two weeks if the winds stay low." "I would not know where to begin." "You must begin by going to Atlantis, to consult with the Great Spotted Dolphins." I see the Old Fish's gills flare at the mention of Atlantis, and wonder why that would cause him stress. "You can make it there in four days," the mako continues, "five to return against the current. Let us pray the winds stay low." The Old Fish notices Jotaro and shakes his head. "I am sorry, but I cannot go. This young marlin is my responsibility.

I cannot abandon him, and he cannot make Atlantis in four days with an egg under his fin." "We will care for the young marlin while you are gone."

"No. He is my responsibility, not yours." "Then he will accompany you, and leave the egg here under our care." "The egg stays with me," Jotaro declares. "The boy is right," the Old Fish says. "The egg is his charge and he is mine."

"I am not your charge," Jotaro continues. "And I care nothing for all of you who come here to cheer and shout over the death of my mother." But the thousands of fish gathered are adamant. As for me, I do not wish to see the Old Fish lose the chance to achieve his dream of Atlantis, regardless of whether the Red Tide would ever actually make it as far as the Gulf.

I call Jotaro aside. "Twenty million fish died in the last Red Tide. Do you truly believe you and the egg can survive twenty million enemies?" He turns to the crowd and listens to their angry grumbling. He returns their hard stares. Finally, he sighs and turns the egg over to them. "You needn't do that, Jotaro," the Old Fish protests.

I am taken aback. "Old Fish, what are you saying? The egg will be fine; you know that." He glances at me briefly, then quickly away. "Come," I say, sucking to his flank. "We have to hurry."

Within moments, we are on our way to Atlantis. Schools of fish part down the middle and we swim through, past a wake of traditional farewells. "Swim with the current, my friends," they call after us.

"Swim with the current," we answer.

Copyright © 2002 by Jay Nussbaum

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