Glenn Orgias
She wanted soup but it was raining, so I offered to go out and get it for her. It delayed my proposal, but allowed me to practise the spiel again. I left the apartment not understanding exactly what an axolotl was. I thought it was a vegetable. But when I got to the restaurant, the woman taking orders pointed to a door-sized aquarium in the wall.
“Which one?” she said.
And I saw the axolotls swimming in the tank. Tiny amphibious monkeys, but furless and translucent and wet. And eyelidless. Well, one of them was blue, and some of them had spots. Plus they were cute, did I say that? I saw them smile. Not fake-happy smiles, but warm grins.
“Naaaah,” I said to the lady. “I want the number four soup, with no garlic.”
“Axolotl soup,” she said pointing at the tank. “Which one will you have?” she stood near the tank with a small net. “The white ones are very good, very tender. Taste like chicken.”
Her fingertip traced the path of a little guy that floated up to the glass and looked at me cautiously, as if I might be the man that would free them from their trap.
“Just a second,” I said to the woman. “I need to make a call.”
***
I rang Laura; the listing in my phone was still Laura from Bumble. The restaurant woman with the net stood by. The axolotls chattered, excited that I was here among them.
“That soup,” I said to Laura, “with axolotl?” I said, suddenly sensing the slipping away of a world I thought I knew and sensing instead the slaughterhouse vibe of this place, how the clinks of cutlery were like some broken machine grinding apart.
“Yeah, number four axolotl,” said Laura. “No garlic, extra chili.”
“Extra chili.” I nodded.
One of the green axolotls had no front legs, just tiny little hands. Like a miniature but very friendly, and nicely smiling, Tyrannosaurus Rex.
“You eat axolotl?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “They taste like chicken.”
“They’re babies,” I said.
“Hey, are you being judgy?”
“No,” I said, mesmerized by the white axolotl because when an axolotl looks at you they look at you plainly, no blinking. How had it got itself into this situation. Big fucking mistake, little guy. “It’s just, they’re cute,” I said to Laura. The woman with the net frowned. I turned aside, “I don’t know how you can eat them when you know what they look like.”
“You eat meat, and you know what cows look like. I’ve seen you eat a Big Mac.”
“A Big Mac, yeah. I’ll get you a Big Mac. A Big Mac isn’t shaped like the thing it is. It’s shaped like a burger.”
“It’s still a cow, Barry.”
“Yeah, but you can deny it’s a cow so…”
“What?”
“I dunno.”
“Are you going to get me the soup, Barry? I have a craving. You know that happens in this situation, right? Vomiting and cravings… I thought you were going to be a part of this, and now you’re being this asshole.”
***
The soup was brown, there was xo sauce in it. The white axolotl was less translucent now that it was cooked. The onion was translucent though. It was the kind of soup you’d need to use both a spoon and a fork. It was in a clear plastic container and it was warm.
I stood outside. The rain was heavier. Really coming down. The world awash. Water sluicing around the gutters for fun. Laura and I had not known each other for long but we’d entered into a surprise circumstance that would link us for a lifetime. I took off the lid of the soup and reached in and took the axolotl out. I examined him under a beam of streetlight shot full of raindrops. The little guy had pink—I don’t know what they were, tentacles?—coming off his head. They were furry. I’m going to say they were tendrils, or whiskers. They were probably its thing to know the world with.
How can I undo what I have done? I am the gentle keeper of things. I am love and death and what is in my hands is fragile. I am borne by something with power over my fragility that is yet to crush me, that is doing so much better by me than I have done by others. We’re all trying to protect the smallest among us, those who give us purpose. But I didn’t want a kid, that’s what I would tell Laura. That’s what I would propose instead.
I put the axolotl in my pocket and sat on a bench. Left the soup open on the seat next to me, filling up with rain. Hurting something needlessly is the deepest wound.
I sat there a while until my phone started beeping.
#
Glenn Orgias is a writer and surfer from Sydney. His shark attack memoir, Man In A Grey Suit, was published by Viking in 2012, you can also find his writing at SmokeLong, HAD, X-R-A-Y and other places. www.glennorgias.com.