How Blue Is My Sapphire

HOW BLUE IS MY SAPPHIRE.

All of us live with our past. All of us allow it to shape our future. But some of us know how to shrug the past. I think that is who I am dealing with.

Sapphire will kill me today. I see it in her eyes. I feel the killer rays lining straight in front of her eyes, steadily directed towards me. I know today is the day because Della is wearing the black apron, which whenever she does, the day turns out bad. The whole restaurant seems to be dull, lacking everyday’s hustle somehow. Gibson has forgotten to warm the water today, and the ghoulish chill just worsens it, worsens her unfaltering stare.
I see her every day. The days I feel close to death, she is out there at her best, flaunting a silvery glint of majestic blue throughout the water. The days I’m gray and mellow, she takes to a light turquoise tone. But the days I’m even close to being content, she seems white, as if she were dead. The aberrant part being, that all she does the whole day and sometimes in my dreams, is stare, an unbroken perpetual stare.
Della stands across the glass wall. She’s the trainee waitress Gibson hired last year. Oh wait, she’s checking her mascara, while the soup flows down drop by drop from the tilted bowl. How I wish I could reach out to her, or anyone out of the room full of uninterested people and point towards Sapphire, point towards her uncanny gaze following me even now while I’m thinking. Today her stare is almost the same cold, but more accusing. I don’t understand the reason though, for I’ve always loved her more than anyone else.
****
I think its funny how most of our fish think sapphire was called so because of her resonant color. That’s not true. She was called so because the women to fish her out of sea and put her in the tub happened to be wearing a large, heart shaped sapphire that day. The ring, it glowed in water like an exiled firefly. I, was struck by the untamed ferocity of a lifeless stone. The women kept on twirling her golden locks and unknowingly, her ornament was blinding my world.
I’m not a fish, neither am I human. What am I then? I veritably cannot define. But what I do know is that I exist, that I live. I am a part of this world, but my definition is unknown.
****

I know she will do it today. It is evident by the way she twirls her fin, as if celebrating a victory. Della has moved ahead and the man who ordered the soup stares at her bottom intently, as she storms into the smoke filled pantry.
The feeling of being voice proofed from a different yet bigger world cannot be described. I firmly give credence to the fact that I was born into the wrong world.
Sapphire is coming towards me. I’m trying to move, but my lower torso is stuck to the plastic weed. I waggle as hard I can but my body is giving up. I can see the black hole inside her shaped lips. The whole is growing larger with each thought of mine. It’s not a whole, but black tar spewing out of her mouth. The other fish seem undisturbed by the tar spreading in to the water. Somehow, I smell metal. I’m still stuck though, but I’ve stopped trying. For it be a dream, it will end, and if it be reality, that will end as well.
So I wait here as calm as Gibson sits at the reception having to bill for the last three years with that pasted smile.
****
Sapphire has been the most salient feature of my life since she was first propped into our tub by that woman. I was struck by her beauty and vibrant swim and I knew I wasn’t alone. However, I could never really make my presence felt to her, as she was always surrounded by men, men who found me invisible. I think it’s a curse, a bitter rotten curse to be there, yet be unknown to the beings that surround you. Of course, like our very existence, our gender is not defined. I have always thought myself to be a woman. Part of it is because I have always wanted to possess the degree of beauty Sapphire possesses and part of it is an unraveled mystery, to me as well.
I made numerous conversations to her, of course in my fantasies, still the very fact that Sapphire was a part of them, made them important to me.
****
She looks like a ghost. The rubbery skin has now taken to a stark white, which zealously swallowed up its own blood, or was it tar. She’s still staring at me, her gaze not disturbed by my expressions or actions. However, I can now hear Gibson’s voice. He’s shouting and it’s so loud, that all the fish, including Sapphire are gaping at the room, though pretending to be nonchalantly swimming.
Della is at the corner, staring straight into Gibb’s bloodshot eyes, yet noticeably blushing all over. However, the customers seemed detached from the scene, making us the mere spectators of Della’s bind and Gibson’s wrath. There is a couple who’ve been giggling over their tea for the past half an hour. The man with the soup, who is alone but at the center of the room, stares at the door, as if it were a holy relic. There is a family of six to the extreme right corner, and they’ve been eating cheeseburgers by competition.
Gibson is still yelling at her, its unnatural how these people, busy with their dwellings fail to notice something so grave. I don’t want Gibson to stop though, for Sapphire will continue the process of perturbing my very fragile existence again.
****
Golden leaves stuck to the glass window remind me of last autumn. I finally mustered the courage to go up to her and talk. She was gazing at the ceiling, as if she could look straight into the heaven of divine creatures. She averted her gaze and blinked at me. I was truly gratified. Yet, even then there was something salty about her blink. With that gaze she muttered aunt.
I barely heard her for I was overcome by the emotion to feel and see the world through that magical gaze. I brushed my bristles against her hazel eyes, with a loving hand. The eyes were crushed, yet they looked so beautiful. It was so soft, so desirable, just as I had imagined it to be. I couldn’t possibly stop myself from doing it again. The very feel of it was heavenly.
****
Della has returned to the pantry and Gibson to his billing. I’m just waiting for Sapphire’s next move, her next stare. But I can’t find her, I sigh out some relief, probably she’s left me for today I think. Yet I turn around to find the water reflecting stark blue rays. I follow my gaze half blinded, to the origin of the beam and find my old love, yet again conversing to heavenly creatures.
I’m dumbfounded by all senses, her glimmering aura spreading across the water. I see the same play in her eyes and the same vigor in her blink I witnessed that day. Yet again I’m in love with sapphire, from whom I was frightened to death a verbal fight back. I swim my way towards her. I’ve reached her and she looks stunning, her blue matching the exact intensity of Della’s ring that day. This is my place, I deem, this has to be it.
****

She seemed lifeless but I knew what it was. It was love, and it was pure. Love, with great stealth and radiance has the potential to make beings oblivious to earthly matter and fly to a different realm; nonetheless my Sapphire had always liked communing with heavenly creatures.
****
So I swim further, to be close to her, just when I see protrusions jutting out of her blue skin. They are growing steadily, and somewhat look familiar. They abruptly stop growing in size. They remind me of my own bristles. She caresses me with a loving hand, and yet again I’m gratified, for my world suddenly seems to be a peculiar mix of stark blue and an impertinent red, spreading in a consistent speed.
****
“You’re fired”, announced a red faced Gibson. “I don’t give a shit either”, said Della spitting out her chewing gum along with the ragged black apron too small a size for her.
As Della stepped out of the restaurant, the world seemed to be a web of golden roads adorned with emerald leaves in between. The click clack of her cheap boots with the carpeted gravel and the slight whoosh of autumn breeze made her wonder what would she cook for dinner, some gluttony pasta or a freshly baked fish, for it was indeed a day to celebrate.

xxx