Her mouth is a tight red pucker. Her eyes are teal, turquoise shadow. Shimmery fins. Long black hair cascades past the neon glow of coral. “Exotic siren,” screams the sign below her. Mermaid. Pacific queer oddity, she floats in an aqua tank, a crowd of 20 people surrounding her. Asiatic.
Trench Coat man comes with a red plastic pail, swirling with electric eel and white jellyfish. Strange sea woman bobs up and down in the tank, now murky with sand dollars and debris. She splashes and gasps. Her top falls off, exposing breasts. Now 40 people surround her like creatures, their tiny teeth exposed, heads thrown back. Trench Coat steps closer, sways the buckets. Those frenzied creatures. He raises the bucket overhead and throws it, like a giant baseball aiming at the mermaid. There’s a blur of motion in the red pail, the white jellyfish and black eel chasing each other endlessly, a swirl, a maelstrom, the sound of waves slapping against glass.
Crack. A thunderous sound. The tank must be tipping, all silver edges, sharp as razors. That red pail is gone. The crowd, a wild river parting. Only a woman is visible. Her turquoise fins kicking murky water, face pushed against glass, as the gravel glows with coral, crabs, and silver fish flopping under the hot metallic sun.
Trench Coat man comes with a red plastic pail, swirling with electric eel and white jellyfish. Strange sea woman bobs up and down in the tank, now murky with sand dollars and debris. She splashes and gasps. Her top falls off, exposing breasts. Now 40 people surround her like creatures, their tiny teeth exposed, heads thrown back. Trench Coat steps closer, sways the buckets. Those frenzied creatures. He raises the bucket overhead and throws it, like a giant baseball aiming at the mermaid. There’s a blur of motion in the red pail, the white jellyfish and black eel chasing each other endlessly, a swirl, a maelstrom, the sound of waves slapping against glass.
Crack. A thunderous sound. The tank must be tipping, all silver edges, sharp as razors. That red pail is gone. The crowd, a wild river parting. Only a woman is visible. Her turquoise fins kicking murky water, face pushed against glass, as the gravel glows with coral, crabs, and silver fish flopping under the hot metallic sun.
Celeste Chan works across prose, poetry, oral histories, and documentary film. Celeste teaches creative writing to LGBTQ youth with Queer Ancestors Project, coordinates QTPOC Free School, and serves as a contributing editor for Foglifter Journal. From 2008-2018, she co-directed Queer Rebels, a queer and trans people of color arts project which presented work nationally and internationally. A Hedgebrook, Lambda Literary, and VONA fellow, her work is published in Ada, As/us, cream city review, Feminist Wire, Hyphen, The Rumpus, and several other journals and anthologies. www.celestechan.com
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