The thought of drowning a gull and ending its reign of arial terror was too tempting to ignore. And though I feared it and wanted to forget having ever realized it, a new seed of wonder began to steadily grow: Was my friend really so invincible, and when would her protection of me end?
As much as I wanted it, my dream of catching a gull would have to wait. Raw strength was not an issue—indeed, I had grown so much that the seabirds were beginning to fear me. As infuriating as they were, they were quick, and they had the whole sky to flee to. Nevertheless, I almost managed it on a few occasions. From these near-successes, the birds began to recognize me, and they soon began to fly as soon as they felt any current of my approach.
Still, I had other matters to worry about than getting revenge on seabirds. Winter had rolled around again and with it came a shortage of food. My life had completed its first cycle around the sun, but this time, I was much better acquainted with the world than when I had first hatched. Still, that season is no easy time, and hunger affected me just as it affects everyone.
The fishing boats did not improve the situation. With colder weather setting in and the winter storms set to be arriving soon, my food supply sought shelter in deeper water. I had no choice but to follow them, which put me into the territory of the fishing boats. With every net they cast, there was one fewer fish to satiate me. The great wooden things scared me almost as much as the gulls once had. I marveled at the sheer number of fish they netted, wondering just how ravenous they must be. I avoided them as best as I could, keeping myself above starvation while dodging their nets and hooks. Still, the winter was shaping up to be a lean one, and there was nothing to be done about it.
Eventually, though, the winter weather drove all but the most desperate away. The seas grew harsh, and the other fish and I found refuge in waters even deeper and further from the coast. The season was not easy. Storms constantly battered the ocean, and both sky and sea were almost constantly dark. During one particularly fierce tempest, the currents picked me up and washed me to the surface. The sky was almost lightless and the waves were monstrously huge. Before I hid, I caught site of a dreadfully large pair of fins attached to a horrifyingly giant face. The larger fish, reveling in the storm, did not notice me, and I dove to a safer depth before it could see me.
Still, most of the winter was uneventful, and I was cold and lonely throughout the majority of it. I was only too happy when spring returned at last and I could finally return to my home.
When I returned to the shallows, I was relieved to find the place relatively unchanged. The coastal waters were comfortably warmer, and on my first day back, I was able to snag two colorful fish for a meal. Better yet, I returned to find a familiar face. My friend, too, had grown, although I was surprised to find that I was now larger than she. Still, we picked up with our games as though we had never paused them, and all was as it should have been.
It had been months since I had traversed these shallow waters. They were so familiar to me, so fundamental to my youth, that I reacted with first denial and then surprise to find that things had changed. For one thing, the fish were not quite as plentiful as they had been the previous year. I was still growing, showing no signs of slowing down, and I required much more food than I had been the previous year. For another, my new, larger body had, at last, revealed a downside in its design. I found myself so unused to traveling in shallow waters that I misjudged how a wave would push me and crashed into a coral reef. The water clouded with blood and broken coral, and a good-sized rainbow fish that might have been my dinner escaped in the confusion. The incident might not have been so embarrassing had it not happened twice more during that morning.
In the end, it became clear that I had simply grown too large and too unwieldy for the coastal shallows. Hunger made me reckless, and my temper grew short. I decided that the fishermen could afford to share their waters with me for a bit. It wasn't conceived with the best judgement, of course, but the stomach does not always concur with sanity.
The fishermen no doubt thought me strange. There I was, a five-eyed fish as long as a small boat, suddenly in their territory. I had grown used to evading their nets the previous year, and that skill served me well in the present. Still, I was the invader, and it was not long before they set their sights upon me.
I avoided a confrontation for a long while, thanks my alert senses. I steered clear of the fishing boats, diving for deeper waters whenever they were around. I would hear their shouts whenever I showed up too close to the surface, but for the time being, we had yet to make contact. I ate well and the fishermen ate well and the fish diminished.
It happened one summer's day that I ran into a net. I was drifting about lazily, and my own carelessness was to blame more than anything else. Suddenly, I felt a tug and noticed that one of my front fins was tangled in the mesh. On the boat, the two fishermen shouted excitedly.
They dragged me closer as I struggled to free myself. I thrashed, hitting the boat with the full force of my being. The men's shouts turned fearful. Their boat was a small one, but they would not leave it without fighting. I threw myself against the vessel again, and a netful of fish tumbled off of the deck. There was no time to mourn the waste. One of the men had recovered, and with a long pole he battered me, narrowly missing my center eye. I roared, crashing against the boat once again, and that was the end of it.
One of them clung to a piece of wreckage and swum. The other struggled for a moment, trying to find the surface, before doing the same. Another boat had seen the wreck. It was close enough that I could hear the men shouting on it, but not so close that it would be upon us in an instant.
I didn't eat the men. It certainly would have benefitted me to have less competition, but I could not bring myself to do it. I was still reeling with amazement that I was capable of destroying their boats, and they were so similar in appearance to my friend that I felt as though I was preparing to drown her. I was disturbed that I had even considered it. Distressed, I left them bobbing and swam away.
I found my friend later that day. She was playing on the beach, building a mound out of wet sand, and she cheered at my appearance. Relieved to have an escape from the events of the morning, I allowed her to cling to my dorsal fin while I swam the two of us around the harbor. I looked for a school of fish to startle, but there was none to be found.
This is how I tried to live for a while. The fishermen searched for me actively, and I destroyed their boats until larger ones came, their crews armed with more dangerous weapons. The influx of men forced me to remain in deeper waters. It was dark there, and I went many weeks without seeing the surface of the water. I began to wonder if they had forgotten their search. Hopeful, I swam skywards.
On the day I returned to the surface, I finally captured a gull.
Life as I knew it unraveled as the weeks proceeded. My reputation had been formed as a monster fish, a destroyer of boats and a danger to all manner of life. When people saw me, they hated me. They called their neighbors and fought back with spears and more painful instruments. They situated themselves in larger boats, the likes of which I could not destroy. In response, I hid myself well, deep in the waters of the harbor and far from the sky. Never again was I seen by a human, except my one little friend, and we took care to remain out of sight. Eventually, they stopped hunting me, deciding me either dead or gone away. The village and I were once again at peace.
In the end, however, even that eluded me. It was not my destruction of their boats that finished the village, although I am certain that that contributed to it. The true answer was much more pathetic than that. I, the intruder, was simply able to outcompete the native species for food. Staying hidden, I had done as much damage to the harbor's fragile ecosystem as I might have done in the open sunlight. The fishing boats diminished, village houses were abandoned, and only I remained. After a while, I, too, moved on.
There is one memory that stayed clear with me when I made my final swim out of the harbor and back into the open ocean. It was the last time I saw my friend.
She's standing there, waiting. There's water in her hair, and bits of it frizz out in a half-dried state to capture the light. Although I pose a greater danger to her than anything else on this beach, she's not looking at me with hopelessness or fear. We know each other too well for that.
She reaches out, touches my face, and closes her eyes. I will never know her final thoughts about me, not in the many long years I have left in this life, but I would like to think that they were not filled with regret for saving me. I would like to believe that someday, we shall go back to the happy times we once had together. And in the bright, shallow waters of our youth, we shall once again find safety, comfort, and joy.