Swedish Fish
and the Shape of the Universe
by Elisha
Webster
The Great
Swedish Fish Craving was not only illogical, but ill-timed.
I was three blocks away from my apartment, on foot, lugging
a can of NoFreeze in one hand and a jug of gasoline in the
other. It was dark and it was snowing. It was cold. But
wait; I’ll get to all that. Maybe I should start at the
beginning.
The beginning is one hour prior to the Great Swedish Fish
Craving. I was on my way to pick up Chinese food for
dinner. I stuck my key into the car’s ignition and turned
it. The car whinnied. There was a hint of injury in the
whinny, a How could
you let this happen? A
How could
you do this to me?
My car’s gas tank was frozen. Not only was I stranded sans
Chinese food, but I’d let my car down, too. With an air of
contrition, I promised to
professionally clean my vehicle and to fix the back brake
light for good measure.
“Never again, little car,” I vowed out loud.
It is never good to be on the outs with your
vehicle.
The Citgo is
eight blocks away from my house. Four blocks north and four
blocks east. If I need milk or beer or some other
spontaneous purchase, I drive, taking the four blocks north
and four blocks east to the station. As for the trip home,
I complete the square: four blocks south and four blocks
west. The trip’s symmetry is pleasant, satisfying. I like
to imagine my apartment and the Citgo strike a spiritually
equidistant balance only I am privy to.
I get attached to places. I buy coffee at the Cedar Street
Cafe. I get soup at the Three Fish Deli. If I need a new
pair of shoes or pants, I go to Stella’s consignment shop.
Stella, warm and doughy, lolls around the shop, bumping her
hips against displays and mannequins. She yells things like
“Girl, you looking sexy in that sweater,” or “Honey, I just
got to tell you how gorgeous
your butt looks
in those jeans.”
I feel obligated to admit at this point, that there is an
Exxon, a perfectly adequate gas station, located closer
to my apartment.
It offers full service and clean restrooms. Still, I
frequent the Citgo, eight symmetrical blocks from my house.
I know this may sound compulsive, obsessive, or even
neurotic, but I will defend myself thus: It’s not like
I have
to
do it. I like
to
do it. The trip is satisfying. It helps things feel neater.
The night of the Great Swedish Fish Craving was no
exception, even on foot. My otherwise incapacitated car had
a makeshift thermometer that read negative two, so before
setting off on my long walk, I went to my bedroom for some
more layers. A set
of long johns, a pair of sweatpants, a pair of corduroys,
two sweaters, a jacket, a hat, a scarf, a pair of mittens,
and a pair of boots later, I was ready to go.
I walked as
quickly as I could, swinging an empty gas container in one
hand and my purse in the other. My excess in layers limited
my speed and the carefree-ness of my swing. The gas
container’s plastic scuffed at my jacket. Clamor and clang,
here I come. The chill nibbled at my eyes and lips like a
playful puppy. It hadn’t started to snow yet, but you could
tell it was only a matter of time.
Dougart works the cash register at the Citgo. He is tall,
at least six five. He likes to wear striped collared shirts
that dribble over his tight black jeans. He usually misses
a button or two. Dougart looks like a regular Picasso
painting, crooked shirt, crooked glasses, his eyes
magnified and floating on his lenses, detached and unreal.
“Hi Dougart,” I said and unwrapped my scarf—which required
some concentration since it was so long.
“Hi Sara. You walk here?”
“Yeah. My car won’t start. The gas froze.”
“You shouldn’t let the gas get that low.”
Dougart likes to comment on my purchases. Say, if I were to
buy some condoms or a pack of cigarettes, he’d wag his
head, run a hand through his greasy,
too-long-for-his-haircut-hair and say, “You know you should
be looking for a husband soon,” or “I gave up smoking one
year ago and never felt better in my life.”
“It’s my fault. I was too cold and lazy to get gas the
other night, so I pushed it.”
“Now you’ve got to walk all this way,” he said,
superfluously.
“Yup. Oh well. It’s not too bad. It feels kind of nice
outside.” Still and crystallized, I thought, but didn’t
bother to add.
Dougart raised an eyebrow or rather cocked his head, which
gave the impression of a raised eyebrow. He drummed his
hands on the counter. “How much gas you want?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just enough to get the car started and
back here.” I hefted my purse onto the counter. I had knit
the purse three years prior using purple yarn and pink
string. It was the first and last thing I knit. The purse
looked pretty good when I first finished it. The yarn was
vigorous and elaborate. Watercolor pink cloth lined the
purse’s interior. I had found the perfect button, too--a
pink clay button, lumpy, whimsical, and perfect, but for
some reason or another, I never got around to sewing the
thing on. I’m bad when it comes to details. I would make a
terrible artist and a worse surgeon.
Now, the least of the purse’s problems was its lack of a
button. The lining flapped loosely, in and out of the purse
like a recalcitrant tongue. The strap was stretched thin.
The yarn frizzled like bad hair.
“Looks like
it’s time to get a new purse,” Dougart decided to say.
“Yeah.” I was only half listening. My wallet usually hides
out at the bottom of my purse, beneath receipts, match
books, cigarette cases, and a book or two.
“You say you made that yourself?”
“Yup,” I said, pulling out a copy of The Purpose
Driven Life, a pack of
Camel Lights, and a handful of papers. I put them on the
counter. A free cigarette must have broken in my purse,
because a handful of receipts left brown tobacco droppings
everywhere. “Hang on. I’m finding it. This thing’s a black
hole,” I said, just as I found my wallet.
“I can’t blame you for holding onto it, though,” he said,
meaning the purse. “You know, I made this blanket once when
I was eight. It was orange with little white flowers in the
middle.” He traced little white flowers in the air and we
both stared at the air between us. I imagined the flowers
to be daisies.
“It’s relaxing, crocheting,” he said. I thought to tell him
that I actually had knit
my
purse, but reconsidered.
I said instead, “Your mind kind of disappears. It’s
meditative.”
“I ever tell you about my fish tanks? Talk about relaxing.
I’ve got six or so fish tanks in my living room. They’re
all over the place. Vespy and I kill hours staring at
them.”
Vespy is Dougart’s dog. I met her once when I ran into
Dougart at the laundromat. She is small and black with
yellow tufts of fur around her tail. She has the most
enormous lips I’ve ever seen on a dog—soft and pink rather
than that rubber black you see on most canines. It was a
weird sensation having her mouth pushed against my palm. It
felt too human. Too intimate.
“We can stare at those fish all day long. Just kick back,
with a beer, watching them swim by. You know,” Dougart
leaned across the counter. His breath smelled like Doritos
and sugar. “Sometimes I think they stop and look back at
us.” Dougart’s face assumed a fishlike vacancy. He paused
and stared at the wall behind me, mustering up the dramatic
gusto necessary to his pantomime: Dougart the fish.
I laughed supportively and began replacing the contents of
my purse.
The things that make most people nervous, don’t faze
Dougart--take extended eye contact for example, or overly
enthusiastic role playing in public places. He rushed into
his fish characature bravely, with a seriousness more
befitting a theatre student than a gas station chashier.
“Sometimes I think the fish are wondering,
Hey! Hey!
What are they looking at?” The voice he
opted for the fish was several octaves higher than his own
baritone, but tough in a Larry and Moe sort of
way.
“Right. What
are you
looking at?” I
assumed a fish-like persona as well, except I didn’t put my
heart into it like Dougart. My voice was more like an
uneasy girl laughing and talking quickly.
Dougart smiled. He was Dougart again and not a hostile
fish. He took my debit card. “I think five dollars will be
enough,” he said.
“Sure. That and this NoFreeze.” I lifted the container so
that he could see it. He nodded.
“Have I told you about my idea to make a five-mile long
aquarium?”
“Five miles?”
He returned my card to me. “You can put your PIN number in
now,” he said. He had to say that.
“Sure. But five miles?”
“I’ve got all the plans. I’ve made blueprints already. It’s
not going to be like five miles down the street or
anything. I want it to wrap around itself, and twist. Like
a maze.”
For some
reason, I thought of intestines.
“Like intestines,” I said. Aren’t they like four times your
body length?
“Yeah,” he said, even though I think he had no idea what I
was talking about. “I just need money. It’s all planned
out. I ran into this guy I know and he was like ‘I’ll pay
you one thousand dollars if you can do it.’ And I was like
‘I need more than that!’” Dougart laughed.
He laughed for a
long time.
“Wow. Ha ha. That’s great.” I said, meaning his interest in
aquariums was great. To be honest, I was a little taken
aback.
“I think about stuff like that. I got a lot of free time
with this job, so I just sit around and think up stuff.”
Over Dougart’s shoulder, I noticed the faint blush of the
sky, its slow inhaling.
“Well, I should
get back. It’ll be dark soon, and I need to get my car all
situated.”
That’s when he offered me the Swedish Fish. He had a
super-sized bag of them behind the cash register. “I love
these things.” He tossed two of them into his mouth.
But this was pre-craving, and at the moment I was not in
the mood for Swedish Fish. I told him no thanks and to have
a good night.
* * *
So there I was,
waddling home in the dark, two heavy containers of liquid
in my hands, my purse strung around my neck, and craving
Swedish Fish. Who knew? And this craving was not a
Hey that’d
be nice if I had some Swedish Fish hanker; this
was a full out, must-have dilemma. I was so close to home,
so close to completing my geometric stroll, but I had no
Swedish Fish.
It started to
snow.
It was probably a 25-minute walk back around “the square,”
but if I cut through a couple back roads I could make it to
the Exxon in under five. I was cognitively dissonant. There
was always the possibility of filling my car and driving to
the Citgo for the Swedish Fish, but my craving was more
immediate. Swedish Fish were imperative to my survival.
The gas can pulled at my fingers and I stopped to adjust
the weight. I switched hands, the NoFreeze in my left and
the gasoline in my right, not to mention my purse which
hung on for dear life around my neck with its threadbare
straps. It snowed harder. The flakes were soft, individual
and startling. It was the kind of snow you wanted to catch
on your tongue or spin beneath, your chin pointed upwards,
your throat open. My breath made indistinct the startling
contrast between the red black sky and the white white
snow.
I decided to
take the back alley. I had taken it once before, quite by
accident, when I was looking for a record store a friend
recommended, and I got lost. I
recalled that the alley went on for a couple blocks before
spilling out into a wider, better lit
road.
I tried to
imagine a five-mile long aquarium and how much money that
would cost. All the filters, colored pebbles, and coral.
I’m sure it’d add up. While I was impressed with Dougart’s
obvious passion regarding the whole project, I couldn’t
help but be skeptical. A five-mile long aquarium. What was
the point?
Aquariums were soothing, I had to admit. My dentist kept an
aquarium for a wall in the back of his waiting room. He had
every type of fish you could imagine: striped fish, polka
dotted fish, silver fish, blue fish. I mean, you name it,
he had it. For me though, the thrill of the tank had little
to do with the aquatic view, but rather the sound that it
made. The sonorous hum of the filter, the silky ascension
of bubbles and the buzzing fluorescence--all of it combined
to create a reassuring symphony fit for Pure Moods VII.
Come to think about it, my dentist’s office was not a
half-bad place to hang out. He had a decent magazine
collection, interesting art on the walls, and a friendly
receptionist. Sure, he had the typical dentist office
tedium: crying babies, polite coughers, and behindhand
scheduling. He had the Teen
Magazines, the
Southern
Livings, and
the Hunting and
Fishings, but he also
had Rolling
Stone and
Discover.
In fact, the last time I had my teeth cleaned, I read
this Scientific
American article that
was especially interesting. The article debated the shape
of the universe.
As I walked I tried to recall details from the article. I
looked up at the sky for help. Just a small strip of stars
and snow were visible. The darkness was fluid and thick.
Surreal. My movements felt labored. I placed the gasoline
and NoFreeze onto the pavement and lit a cigarette. The
alley was longer than I remembered. Shortcut, indeed.
These scientists in the magazine said, if I remember
correctly, that the shape of the universe is a little like
the shape of the earth. The shape of the earth, meaning,
that if you start in one place on the earth and continue
travel in one straight line, you’ll end up in the same
place. After so much travel, you’d end up exactly where you
started. These scientists and mathematicians said the
universe is sort of similar to the earth, except a little
more difficult to wrap your mind around, since it’s got a
whole different dimension, and all. The article described
the possibility of a space ship starting out somewhere,
traveling in a straight line and eventually ending up in
the same place. Obviously, this hypothesis had other little
intellectual nuggets like parallel universes, black holes,
and time/space continuums, but I couldn’t remember any of
that now.
My stomach grumbled unhappily. I finished my cigarette and
started walking again.
My mind wandered, returning to Dougart and his tank dreams.
I heard somewhere that fish have a five-second memory. If
that’s true, what’s the point of constructing a five-mile
long aquarium for an animal with a five-second memory? When
I thought about it that way, I was outright irritated at
Dougart for so willingly blowing money on something so
pointless.
I felt as if I’d been walking forever. I considered placing
the gasoline and NoFreeze in an inconspicuous area, like
beside some back door step or behind a bush. I could pick
them up on my way back.
“Almost there,” I said out loud. The puff of white, my
words. It felt weird to speak to myself like that. I
imagined the white wisp words disappearing, with no one
else to hear them.
That’s when my forehead hit the glass.
* * *
I realize the
unsystematic nature of that declaration, but the following
events all seem disjointed and random. I can’t find
a gentle,
transitional way to present them.
I was walking. My fingers stung from supporting all that
liquid weight. Darkness gathered mass and texture; it fell
as quickly as the snow, soft and thick as the snow, until I
wasn’t really sure which was falling, which was collecting,
which I had to push aside in order to continue down the
street.
And then I hit the glass--so clear it was invisible: A wall
of glass, rounded in nature. Beyond the glass was darkness.
The street squeezed between a border of buildings, wending
alley-like past boarded doors and windows, and then the
street stopped. I know that it stopped because I hit my
head on the invisible obstruction that stopped it. I
stepped back, shaking and stunned.
I approached the place where the street stopped. I placed
the gasoline and NoFreeze onto the pavement and lifted a
cautious mitten towards the glass. My hand slid smooth over
its surface. I ran my hand up and back down its surface.
Whatever it was, reached to the ground and then up over my
head, curving slightly inward. I removed my mitten. The
glass was cold and numbed my hand.
“Glass.” My words formed a puff of white that condensed
onto the transparent barrier before me. I ran my finger
through the condensation, leaving a black streak through
smoky gray.
I felt dizzy. I forgot about the Swedish Fish. I replaced
my mittens and flattened my palms onto the glass. This must
be some kind of joke. I walked sideways, the width of the
alley. The road was completely sealed off. Air tight. There
was street and snow and then darkness. A chill prodded the
base of my spine.
I turned a full
circle. I could see no one. I knocked indiscriminately on
doors, but no one responded. The sound of my rap felt
muffled and pointless. There was no one. I knew this,
somehow.
I thought, maybe I am dreaming.
I approached the glass again. I stood looking at it, or
rather at the place where I knew it was. I must have stood
there for twenty minutes or so, aware only of my breath and
a pulse throbbing my hands.
It was as if all that darkness was water, black water,
bottom of the ocean black. The darkness poured in; was
pushing my chest slowly closed. I thought I must
be
dying. I kicked the wall. My foot jerked short. My whole
leg stung. I searched the ground for a rock, anything blunt
to break the glass.
I realized I was panting.
“Hello!” I yelled. Nothing. Not even an echo.
At my foot, the metal can of NoFreeze. I stepped back
several feet and heaved it towards the invisible wall.
There was a tremendous rattle and the NoFreeze fell to the
ground. The can of NoFreeze looked to hesitate, mid-flight,
strike an agreement with the air to cease and desist all
travel, and fall.
The snow continued to descend. I looked up. It was a little
like being in a snow globe.
I was either extremely angry, sad, happy, or hysterical. I
am not sure which, even now. I was somewhere above the
spectrum of emotion. Looking beyond the glass was a little
like looking over a supernatural precipice.
A cube-shaped pounding began in the center of my skull, as
if clearing a space where my head was once soft--that place
on my skull where my bones were once open and unfastened,
that place where they eventually closed, like a finished
jigsaw puzzle over my fully developed brain. My bones were
no protection against this pounding, which persisted with
its eight points of
sharpness--the discomfort was too sharp and multifarious to
be throbbing. The pain was unlike anything. It was made of
the stuff of brain probes and tumors. I cradled my head and
sat down on the frozen pavement,
containing the pain with my fingers, but it leaked out
between them, and I panicked.
I told myself I was not dead. “I am alive. I am okay,” I
said out loud, and the cubed pounding seemed to efface into
a circular dullness. I could think around its rounded
edges, at least.
I made a plan. Or at least, I found an impulse for action.
Forgetting about my No Freeze and gasoline, I ran
back through the alley. The huddled buildings stuck out
their shadows like legs to trip me, but I jumped over them.
The pounding diminished to a tick.
By the time I reached the main road, the pounding was
completely gone. I stopped in the middle of the road,
looking in both directions, feeling my skull to see if it
had changed size.
Instead of running back to my apartment, I ran to the Citgo
where Dougart was
reading a romance novel and eating candy.
“Hey Sara. How’s it goin?” His mouth was full of red
gummies. When he chewed he made loud smacking sounds.
“Dougart,” I struggled to catch my breath. “The craziest
thing just happened. You won’t believe it.”
Dougart reached his hand down behind the counter and pulled
out a handful of Swedish Fish. “Want one?” He extended his
hand to me.
“Sure. Yeah,” I said, taking a fish and putting it into my
mouth. As I chewed, I tried to collect myself, and to
mentally gather and organize the details of my story.
“You out for a walk?”
“Yeah. I guess I am,” I said, trying to remember why
it
was I was at the
Citgo in the first place. “Hey, I forgot how much I like
Swedish Fish. You mind if I have some more?”
“I don’t mind.” He lifted the bag onto the counter and I
helped myself. We were both more interested in the Swedish
Fish than in each other’s conversation. For the sake of
appearances, we smiled and nodded at one another as if we
were pondering something the other person had said, but we
weren’t, or at least I wasn’t. I was trying to remember why
I had come.
“It’s getting dark,” Dougart said.
I followed his
gaze out the window. Sure enough, it was dark out. How long
had it been dark? Why couldn’t I remember? A light snow
fell.
“I should get going,” I said, turning partially, but
stopping. “Hey,” I said, hefting my purse onto the
countertop. “I’ll take a bag of those Swedish Fish. They’re
pretty good. I forgot how good they were.”
“Sure.”
As he rung me up, he asked me if I knit my purse. I told
him yes, and then he told me his plans to make a five-mile
long aquarium. As he talked, I tore upon my purchase and
stuffed Swedish Fish into my mouth, one after another.
I nodded and pretended to be interested in what he was
saying.
I walked home in a daze. I finished off my bag of candy and
tossed the empty bag into the dumpster outside of my
apartment. I wasn’t really hungry for dinner now, so I
watched a movie, then went to bed.
The next day, a fresh layer of snow covered the ground. The
air smelled clean and cold. The earth seemed untouched and
new. I got into my car to drive to the Ceder Cafe for some
coffee, but the car wouldn’t start. There was something of
injury in the car’s whine--something familiar. I sat in my
car, turning the engine over and over and listening to its
sound, waiting for the memory to come.
The cans of No Freeze and gasoline. The snow. The darkness.
The wall of glass.
My hands shook. My engine gurgled and whined.
I peered out
the windshield, my jaw slack, forming a perfect and
bewildered oval.
I took out my cigarettes and smoked three, exhaling against
the car’s windows. I watched the glass fog and then slowly
dissolve clear.
A small pointed pounding began in the center of my skull.
I told myself it was a dream. I repeated to myself that it
was a dream and that I was okay. I was alive.
It’s pretty easy to forget stuff so important. You’d be
surprised. You just have to make the decision to do it,
somewhere inside of you. You decide and it’s gone. The
memory gets smaller until everything feels normal again,
and you don’t have to wonder what it was you saw. What it
was you’ve forgotten.
Copyright
2008 by Elisha Webster