A Portrait of Horror

Tonya watched the small black and white striped fish jump free of the pool. She grabbed the hem of her yellow dress and ran to the fish, skipping, giggling. With the very tip of her white slipper, she nudged the flopping fish back into the water. It splashed frantically, turned sharply to Tonya and stopped. It stared.

“Silly fish.” Tonya smiled and pulled at the big yellow bow around her waist.

On the opposite side of the pool, the black and white fish lunged over the edge and fiercely rocked its body into the brown grass. Once into the higher weeds, it stopped undulating and began to slither. This was the farthest it had gone.

The small girl reached down and grabbed the tail of the fish. It fell still. She slowly walked it back. Dangling the fish in front of her face, Tonya scolded the black and white. “Stay in the water, or you'll die.”

As she flicked the fin out, the mouth came round and tiny teeth scythed through her cheek. Blood poured from her plump flesh; the fish plunged into the winter waters of the pool; Tonya screamed. Red, dewy driblets fell onto her fingers, painting the nails before rolling off into the water.

A tall woman, fire in her eyes, scanning the scene, collapsed on Tonya and pulled her close. She grabbed the child's small open face and wiped the blood with her long blue sleeve.

The black, white and now red fish watched as two people, hugged tightly together, flowed through the red door of a white house.

Night bled the day black; the fish swam.

Tonya threw her pink blanket over her thin shoulders and pressed her face against the frosty glass of her bedroom. From the second story, in the muted yellow light from atop a telephone pole, she peered down and watched the fish swim in tight, fitful circles.

She traced her fingers along two purple band-aids below her green eye. “Bad fish.” It stopped moving.

The bedroom door swung open. Tonya turned to the woman beveled in the gray shadow of the hallway and sprung into bed, fluttering the pink blanket over her body. The woman walked to the side of the bed and stroked the top of Tonya's blond head. She sat on a small, orange spotted wooden stool.

“How did a fish get in our pool?” The woman asked, swiveling the little girl's head to her with a long finger placed under the small round chin.

“It came up from the ground.”

“What does that mean, Tonya?”

“A glowing hole opened in the bottom of the pool, and the fish popped out.”

“Glowing hole?”

“Yes, momma. It jumped through tiny glowing lights.”

The two looked at each other silently: one looked confused, frustrated; the other, apologetic.

The woman rose from the stool. “Stay away from the pool until I have someone remove the fish. You understand?”

Tonya nodded and shut her eyes as the last bit of a light blue nightgown fell behind the closing door.

Early the next morning, warm light exposed a small girl, kneeling atop a pink blanket, pulling thick black stockings over her knobby knees.

Standing in front of a tall, thin mirror, Tonya fluffed the sides of her black dress, then weaved a black ribbon through her hair. Clasping the last of two black, shiny shoes, Tonya marched downstairs.

The red door closed against her back. Tonya bent past the edge of the pool. The bottom, from shallow end to deep, sizzled with flicks of flame. The black and white fish with a deep red stripe slashed across its side surfaced.

“I can't hear you,” Tonya said, leaning closer. “What is it? I can't hear you.”

The fish swam closer. The ground rumbled, and the flames kicked higher through the water.

“I don't want to play,” Tonya said. “My momma told me to stay away from you.” She paused. “But, you are a bad fish. You hurt me.” Fire shot across the pool like a lightning strike, boiling its wake.

A crystal tear slipped down Tonya's cheek. Her rosy face sunk into a pout. She shivered. “Don't make me...I'll let you go.”

Tonya opened her little round mouth so a hollow, soundless scream could escape and tumbled forward into the water, her arms braced for the impact.

The woman came suddenly awake; her eyes wide; her face damp. She grabbed a velvet robe from off a chair and ran for the back door.

She dove into the water screaming, momentarily hovered over Tonya's upright, floating body. The girl's face drifted through the water in long, thin strips of fleshy tendrils. Fingertip-sized dollops of bright green eye bobbed along in little ripples. A purple band-aid, sliced but not severed, flapped, stuck against a cold toe.

In the distance, through the brown grass, past the high weeds, a large black and white lizard with a red stripe across its side, scaled the side of a white fence and disappeared beyond.

With water droplets spraying like emerald- and topaz-hued shrapnel, the woman hit the water like a grenade.