Fintan 1

Part one: Allegro

It was by a series of miracles, not altogether kind, that the fish, Fintan, arrived at the Boston aquarium. As aquariums are, some would say, the perfect place for captive fish, it would not seem to have required miracles, adjectival or not to get him there, but the fact remained that it WAS a miracle—for at one time, long ago, Fintan was the most famous fish in the world.

And the reason he was so famous, as any Irish storyteller will tell you, was that he didn’t used to be a fish. A long time ago, as the Lebor Gabala Erenn states, he was a man, Fintann Mac Bochra, who had traveled to Ireland with Cessair, Noah’s Granddaugther to escape the flood. When that didn’t work, and everybody drowned, he turned himself into a fish.

He also spent some time as a stag, and a hawk, or else the hawk was another magical hawk that was as old as he was , depending on who you ask. There had been rumors that Finn McCool had eaten him, or that he’d died after telling St. Columcille the story of Irish history (along with the hawk, or by himself). But it wasn’t true.  He’d just been swimming around, passing the time. Until the wrong trawler picked him up.

Now he wore on his fish-face a perpetual expression of almost unimaginable weariness.

This mostly went unnoticed since, as a rule, humanoids are pretty bad with fish facial expressions.

His presence at the aquarium doesn’t explain everything, but it explains some things.

On the circular stair that passed for the observation deck of the central tank Angus McGillicudy stands. Angus is a redhaired Irishman, visiting all the way from Dirty Auld Dublin town. He is with a girl he’d been dating for some years, and he begins to get a funny feeling, looking at the tank. “Hey Sharon,” he said. “See that little yellow one in the corner?” He gestured, indicating the aged sage.

“Yeah?”

“Is there something weird about him, or is it just me?”

“Can’t it be both?”

Ordinarily, he wouldn’t insist, but that funny feeling kept spreading.

“I’m serious, Sharon.”

“Looks like an old fish, to me.”

“Looks like he’s screaming.”

This is not all that is happening, right then.

Over in the food court, Jarvis Daniels was butchering a first date. He really hadn’t expected to this time. He’d been reading books.

“I’m not one of those love ‘em and leave ‘em guys,” he says. “I really want to get to know you. I want to see you without your skin.”

He knows he’s made a mistake when the color drains from her face, but it takes a moment to figure out what it is. He is appalled. He offers that he is not a serial killer. He is aware that these aren’t words uttered on any first date that goes well enough to get a second one. He sighs.

Also at the aquarium that day is a young man named Ronald Hayes who has come to the aquarium because he is unbelievably high on narcotics and had become completely obsessed with the idea of seeing some fish.

“HEY,” he’d said to his equally stoned friends. “HEY GUYS.  HEY.  I GOTTA GO SEE SOME FUCKING FISH.  I GOTTA SEE SOME FUCKING FISH LIKE RIGHT FUCKING NOW. LET’S ALL FUCKING GO AND SEE SOME FUCKING FISH.”

They hadn’t come ,but he has managed to navigate the T by himself, anyhow. This wasn’t his first rodeo.

Also there, on that day, is an old man noisily eating a piece of bread, fairly near Jarvis. He has crumbs in his beard.

Outside the window, a hawk winks.