A Bubbly Remedy for Equatorial Malaise

6:01 am

Nothing is as unnerving as a still sea. I slept like shit.

The ocean is too pacified; the ship is listless. It’s like sitting in bathwater. There’s no breeze. The only waves are the ripples of bird-shit splashes.

The Guantanamera is not reliant on wind for locomotion. But it is reliant on its crew. And I fear the crew is planning our demise. Or, in the least, they are tempted to throw Vasilisa overboard. Vasilisa who smells of coconut lotion and burped caviar. Gauche if not opulent. Fleshy if not corpulent. Vasilisa. Who joked about setting her luggage trunk down on an albatross. Or was it a joke? The Ecuatoriano crew speak around corners in their lispy whispered Spanish. La hechixada, they call her, la rubia Rusa. 

Estamos malditas. 

I am hoping for a morning constitutional before squeezing into my neoprene sausage-casing and leaping into the deep. I’ve asked Jaime, the cook, for the good stuff. I want the coffee El Capitán is drinking. With a side of bacon. That should do the trick. 

11:17 am

The sun has swallowed the sky. Horizon to horizon, there is nothing but sweet gaseous hellfire. For a moment, there was coolness to be found in the ship’s shadow, beneath the hull, where the sea turtles gather and plot their revenge. The largest of those turtles, the size of a Volkswagen, eyed me with the same indifference as Émilie, mademoiselle marine biologist. Then I emerged from the water to be reminded of of the onslaught of sun. The only shade was buried beneath my flaky charred flesh. The sun sizzled at the salty droplets of sea along my shoulders and, insatiable, drew forth all remaining moisture from my body. Leaving me as I am now, here, below decks, back in my cabin. Shriveled. Bleached. Tan. 

Drink this, Des said, tossing me a plastic jug of aloe juice. All of it, she insisted. I’m fine, I told her. You are not fine, she said. You are dehydrated, delirious, delusional. You maybe got the bends, she said. Bubbles in the brain. Rest. If you’re feeling better after lunch, we can talk about going to shore.

I asked her to look at my back. There was a throbbing pain. A filing cabinet full of paper cuts, eviscerating my skin, one slice after another, intensifying. What is it?, I asked. 

I don’t know, Des said, her chewed fingernails poking at the wound on my back. Maybe you are growing fish gills. Drink your juice I will be back down later. 

She left me, ascending the stairs for quarters unknown. I remained in the cabin. Slowly devolving. 

11:23 am

I slept. Turbulently. Briefly. I woke thinking of my father’s demise.

When the slow tide of death was sweeping my old man out to sea, I asked him to journal his thoughts, his stories. I knew my time with him was limited. All time with everyone is limited, but these remaining sands were particularly sparse. I wanted something material, and immortal. If not an extension of his expiration date, I wanted an imprint of my father’s story. Just a few words. Whatever he could spare. 

I do not believe this to be malaria. One does not grow fish gills on one’s back when one has malaria. You do not have malaria, Des told me. No shit, I said. That is what I am saying, I said. What ails me is no common affliction prodded-over in the annals of medical journals. There is some undiscovered alien virus making its way through my bloodstream, overriding my nervous system, and, most appallingly, turning me back into a fish. 

You’re an ass, Des said. 

No. A fish. 

11:31 am

I have been exiled. In my sickness, I’ve been left to rot in this deathbed. El Capitán wants to contain the spread of my disease. Des has returned from the galley with a lunch prepared by the ship’s cook, Jaime. Lunch includes a ham & cheese sandwich. There is mayonnaise and in my distorted vision, it glows neon. I cannot eat this, I told Des. Eat the fruit, she insisted. 

Des has consulted with the elder statesman onboard, Erich the Elder, a fine academic who lost his tenure at a fine university for being too handsy with the soft flesh of students. Erich the Elder has been reduced to continuing his life’s work aboard second rate science vessels while accompanied by his black sheep son, Erich the Younger, whose genesis was explained by Erich the Elder as, “I married above my station socially and beneath me intellectually. The fruit born of our tenuous labor was this feral dullard named in my honor.” Erich the Younger twirled anxiously at his spaghetti noodles as his story was told.  

I ate the fruit. Des explained to me how Erich the Elder referenced Dollo’s Law. Dollo’s Law states that evolution is not reversible. Meaning what?, I asked her. Meaning your fish gills couldn’t possibly be fish gills, she said. Return to me to the water, I insisted, and I will prove otherwise. 

11:33 am

After another rest, I wake in a sweat and return to my journal. 

Dollo’s Law. Why couldn’t evolution reverse itself? The Age of Man is over. We’ve been kicked out of Eden and have now lost our dominion over the creatures. This is now the Age of the Coronavirus… and Bacteria and Internet Memes. 

Am I some sort of prototype? Next-gen ape… -fish? Have I been unnaturally selected as the first evolutionary domino to fall backwards, returning to the sea? From whence we came?

As I write, I hear the cast, the crew, clack & clang their way through the passageways and stairwells of the ship. Do they know? Their time here is done? Are they gathering on the top decks, feasting on ham sandwiches, toasting to the good run the human race has made?

How long do I have?, to write this, my swan song? Swans only sing when death is near. As if a life of trite pond life squawking is tossed aside in favor of a final tune of significance. I could write a sequel to Darwin’s masterpiece based on my own weeks in the Galapagos. Mine would be a refutation of the idea that evolutionary progress is linear. Oh quite the contrary, I will explain. Instead of On the Origin of Species, my book will be On the Origin of Feces. But it will be more than a compendium of scatological humor. It will be my life story.

Where would I begin?

When first introduced to Erich the Elder, in some grand hotel lobby in the Andean valley of Quito, he asked of my field of study. Reptiles, I told him. Saint George in the flesh, Erich the Elder said with flattery. Oh, I do not slay dragons as much as I study them, I told him. How did I get my start, he wanted to know. Quite simply, really, I told him. I began my studies in Horology and found myself with Herpetology. He chuckled and said, ah yes!, the old clocks or crocs conundrum. Indeed!, time is relative, I said, but crocodiles are forever.

We laughed haughtily as the porters struggled with our luggage. 

A thousand miles later, as a tender transported us from our scientific vessel, Guantanamera, to a dive site where we would mingle 30 meters down with a school of hammerheads, Émilie, the marine-biologist from Marseilles, sat opposite from me as she pulled on her wetsuit, moist cigarette dangling from her lips, saying, tell me Monsieur Neverman, what brought you to the Galapagos?, …was it the iguanas?

Oh no, I told Émilie. I took a plane.

12:04 pm 

I was unconscious, though aware of my fevered shivers, when I felt my bed sheet slip away. A cold hand was pressed against my back. Without turning, I whispered in my dying breath, bonjour Émilie. I spoke to her some of the little French I had practiced. C’est le destin d’un verre de se briser. It is the fate of glass to break. So too with man, I told her. But my busted shards have not yet been reduced to ash. What life, what vitality I have left is yours, I said to the indifferent French marine biologist. 

T’es fou!, Émilie said before biting my shoulder. 

Yow. 

I turned around to find the frenchwoman gone and replaced with Des Riley. What black magic fuckery is this?, I inquired. What did you do with Émilie?

What the fuck is wrong with you?, Des asked me. I have a fever, I explained and kicked aside the sheets to relieve the heat. You’re fucking mad, Des said. I’m fucking mad?, I asked. You’re the one who fucking bit me! You’re devolving quicker than I am, I said. You’re half-barracuda!, I said. I’ve always been half-barracuda!, Des said. You’re the one who thought I was Emilia. 

Who the fuck is Emilia?, I asked.

Emilia, the Spanish flight-attend…, ugh, Des said before giving up. I fucking hate you, she said, leaving my quarters. I could hear her footsteps plodding upstairs, heavier than the weight of her mass. 

1:15 pm

My health has improved. I believe my white blood cells have called a cease-fire against the invasive viruses. There is no stopping the inevitability of my metamorphosis. My immune system realizes this now. I am at peace. 

Yesterday, I was on the rocky shores of the nearest desert island, surveying the marine iguanas. A most fantastic creature. HG Wells wrote about future man evolving into two distinct species based on privilege and status. That occurred here with these scaly reptiles. From the stronger alpha lizard evolved the terrestrial iguana. This alpha lizard’s strength was rewarded with choice territory and first dibs on local resources. This alpha lizard became fat and today’s terrestrial iguana is obese and lazy from the rewards passed down from its ancestry. Meanwhile, the weaker beta lizard, which clung desperately to the dangerous outer reaches of the island, constantly assaulted by the infringing sea, evolved into the marine iguana. Today’s marine iguana can dive unfathomable depths in search of prey. This beta lizard grew strong and cunning. It learned to sneeze out the excess of ingested salt. Now a creature of the sea, the marine iguana no longer aspires to the dusty throne of the terrestrial iguana. Through hardship, it is now the superior beast. 

Recalling this tale, I accepted my new fate and my body stopped its resistance. 

The beer helped. 

After Des Riley’s latest departure, I laid in wait, tracking footsteps above, listening to the motorized tender transporting the scientists away from Guantanamera, back to the beachhead. Once I could no longer hear the puttering of the small boat engine, I dizzily climbed from bed and crawled the steps up into daylight. Captain Juan Pablo was ashore, leading the expedition, leaving me with Jaime, the cook. He gave me two cold beers and in return I gave him one of Des’s hairpins. The Ecuatoriano is smitten, it seems. God save the man. 

With the beer, and with a shaded hammock overlooking the vast ocean, I sang the Cuban love song the ship is named after, Guantanamera, but in the bastardized style of my gringo father driving through Miami, steering the car with his knees as he danced the cha-cha, singing, “one-ton tomato! One-ton to-ma-to!”

I am only back in my room now, writing, after using the head. All the aloe juice & cerveza has inflated my bladder. After concluding this note, I will return to my hammock above. 

2:27 pm

Russian proverb: a bad ballerina blames his testicles. 

I had to write that down before I forgot it. Vasilisa just provided that wisdom nugget. I was unable to ask what the fuck exactly it means before the return of the scientists had me scurrying back down to hide in my cabin. Where I am now, a little worse for wear. And belching champagne. 

When I returned to my hammock earlier, I was disappointed to find Vasilisa and her son, Jolly Boy Roger. Des has called Vasilisa a pterodactyl. I prefer the comp of a more contemporary winged jerk, the frigate. Specifically, the frigate’s parasitic feeding practice. The frigate will find a smaller, well-fed bird in-flight and grab it like a sack of nuts off a flight attendant’s cart then shake the smaller fucker until the prey vomits the contents of its little bird stomach. The frigate then, while still airborne, swoops in to slurp up the regurgitate as it falls to earth. This is Vasilisa’s conversation style. 

And yet… I didn’t mind the company of Vasilisa this afternoon. Perhaps this is just the champagne talking, but when the only other person to converse with is the human lamp, Jolly Boy Roger, you don’t mind the company of Vasilisa. When I arrived above decks, she perked-up and told her son to go find his tablet and let the adults have time together. I find this humorous as Jolly Boy Roger is only a year younger than me and if he takes off the lampshade, you’ll find a sunburnt bald spot atop his dome. 

I’m not a champagne drinker, but Vasilisa had some chilled and the cool bubbles felt good on a dry throat. It served as a nice remedy for my equatorial malaise. Mildly intoxicated, I must have told Vasilisa about my fish gills. She had me remove my shirt for a full inspection. We must have been on to the second bottle of champagne by then. She offered to take me to her room where she had some peppered vodka she could apply. Slavic witchdoctor medicine for Kafkaesque transformations, I guess.

Thank you, but no!, I said, explaining I had accepted my new fate. I think this is when she mentioned the proverb about bad ballerinas blaming their testicles for getting in the way. I believe Vasilisa’s point is to understand your toolbox. If I have fish gills, I’m probably going to be lousy at being ape. 

I decided to seek a second opinion. I will ask Émilie, mademoiselle marine biologist, for her expert advice. Vasilisa shook her head at this idea, and corrected me, saying, Emilia, my love. Emilia, the stewardess from Madrid. Oh, I said. That’s right. She’s a flight attendant. But, Émilie aspires to be a marine biologist. Da, Vasilisa agreed, but Emilia does not aspire to be French. 

You say potato, I say potato, I sang to Vasilisa with a shrug. Potato, potato, one-ton tomato, Guantanamera, why can’t we all get along?

Bravo, my love!, Vasilisa clapped at my drunken singsong. 

And that is when I saw the return of the Guantanamera scientists. You never saw me here, I said to Vasilisa. I’ve been asleep this whole time, okay? I excused myself and stumbled back into my cabin. 

As I write this, I can hear their footfalls above. It’s time to put the journal away and pretend to be asleep. I only hope Des doesn’t smell the bubbles on my brain.