Cleaning the Miniature

The man behind the counter chuckled, "I'm sorry young man, that tank is... definitely not for sale."

The boy shrugged and said, "Why not? And why is it way behind the counter?"

The man wasn't sure at first what he should say. Nobody had asked about the tank before... His gut impulse was to say: 'because I said so,' and the truth was, 'because I don't understand it, and it might dangerous.' But his vocal cords settled on, "It's not what it seems."

The boy raised an eyebrow. "Really? it seems like an empty aquarium to me."

The man sighed, and tweaked his moustache. Then he shook his head. "I assure you, it's not empty."

The boy laughed. "Well yeah. I see the water in there. But I mean, there's nothing living in that tank."

Then the man betrayed a truth he should have kept hidden: "Oh, but there is. There's more things living in this tank than in all the tanks in all the fish shops in the country."

"You mean, like germs? My teacher told me about those. Millions of germs called ee-coal-eyes can fit on a pin head, she said."

He grinned. "Yes, well you're teacher is right! But I'm not only talking about bacteria. I'm talking about... Well, maybe you'd prefer to just take a look for yourself?"

He opened the latch-gate that partitioned off the area behind the counter, and stepped aside.

There was a step stool in front of the tank, and a pair of binoculars on the top step.

The boy pointed, “I know what those are. Bye-nocks. My dad says they’re for looking at things that are far away. He uses them to look at birds.”

The man nodded. “Of course, your father is right.”

Then the boy scratched his head. “But why do you have them in here. Everything in this shop is close up…. Do birds fly in through the windows or something?”

“Oh, not very often. I use them to look in this tank.” He gestured broadly as he spoke.

And the boy made no attempt to hide his confusion.

Then the man passed the binoculars to the boy, and said “do you know how to use these?”

He nodded, “yeah, my dad showed me. When we went hiking down by the bay.”

The man smiled. “Well then, take a look in the tank. The focus can spin just about forever, it will let you see so much more than you’d expect.”

The boy scrunched up his nose and pressed the lenses to his eyes. The aquarium was in his view and it looked the same as ever.

He gained the feeling like shame in his cheeks: this fish keeper was just having a joked at his expense. He put the binoculars down and tried not to let his anger get the better of him.

“I guess you think because I'm just a kid, that it’s funny to make me look stupid?”

But the fishkeeper shook his head. “I’m not above a good roasting between friends, but I haven't made fun of a child since I was one, and that was a rough 50 years ago."

The boy scowled. But then his gaze flicked back to the aquarium. His eyes widened a bit, as if to emphasize the curiosity he was trying so desperately to hide. "So... so you're not just messing with me."

The man raised his hand. His voice was low and solemn: "I swear. It's worth another look, but you have to look closer and this time don't give up. Keep looking until you find something."

The boy hesitated, then pressed the binoculars to his face once more.

"Zoom in a bit. I left them at about 1000/1 I think. But once you get a better ratio you'll be able to see what you're looking at."

Most of this went over the boy's head but he adjusted the focus as best he could and.... he gasped!

It had to be a trick of the lens. But it looked so real. He saw a sail boat against the horizon. He lowered the binoculars, and saw with his own eyes: the tank had changed. The water was behaving strangely. There were waves-- so small they seemed nearly microscopic, but there all the same. And sure as daylight, a small boat, floating on the surface.

It had to be a model. But it was so realistic! The best miniature he'd ever seen.

The boy wanted to touch it. He reached forward, and the man leapt up and grabbed his wrist-- "No! You can't touch anything in this tank!"

The boy yanked his hand away. there was a bruise on his wrist. "Ouch! why'd you do that!?"

The man suddenly looked quite old then, and he sighed. "I did that to save a life."

"To save my life? Come on. Be real."

And the man shook his head, very slowly. His eyes seemed to ache with tears along the edges, but if there was a cry in there he bit it back. He blinked. "No. To save their lives."

"Who's lives?"

"Look closer."

The boy's hands were trembling. Maybe it was because one of them hurt. Or maybe it was because his soul felt a flash of fearful uncertainty. In some way, perhaps he knew that looking closer would change something-- or maybe everything... for ever.

But he looked. He zoomed in.

And when he lowered the binoculars, there was a larger model, floating on more visibly pronounced waves. And when he peered into the tank, he saw very small people, drinking and laughing on that sail boat.

His mind reeled.

He stepped of the ladder, and that was just in the knick of time, because he felt ready to swoon. He sat directly on the floor.

"It's magic. Holy shit it's magic."

The man grunted. "I don't think so. I guess I don't know for sure, but... I don't really believe in magic."

"How do you not believe in magic?" He gazed up at the little boat rocking on impossible waves in an otherwise still fish tank. "We're looking right at some. Holy shit!"

The man grunted. "I'm not a big fan of a kid your age using that language. But yeah, to us it seems like magic. I think it's... Science. Just beyond our comprehension. The man who gave this to me... He seemed out of place, like... maybe..." then he trailed off.

And a tear did fall from his cheek then.

The boy raised an eyebrow. "Why are you sad. This is amazing."

The man smiled, and another tear fell. "You're right. It's amazing. But promise me you won't touch anything in this tank. I..." He choked, grimaced, and smiled, but it was a desperate leer that struck more horror than comfort.

"Did you touch the boat before? Did it hurt you or something?"

The man tilted his head sideways and wiped at his tears but more sprung forth to wet the places he dried. "I've never seen that boat before. But I saw a fishing boat, and I picked it up."

"Did you get hurt?"

The man shook his head and a full sob came out. "No. Not me. There were 30 people on that boat and-- I-- uh..."

The boys eyes could not possibly shut. His mouth hung open, he had never seen a grown man cry before, not even his dad when his dad fell off that ladder and broke his leg....

But the shock of seeing an adult cry, that wasn't what really stunned him. What really stunned him was the implication: the little people on that boat. They weren't a special effect or a magic trick. They... But they couldn't be real people-- how?

The man coughed. put his head in his hands and grunted to speak, "I know to warn you not to touch anything in there, because I did once, and I killed 30 people."

"You picked up their boat or something? I don't see how that would kill anybody. Couldn't you just put it back?"

"They were about the scale we're looking at now. They were each smaller than an ant, and their boat crumbled when I picked it up. I crushed them on accident. Like bugs and I..." He swallowed hard. "I saw little bits of gore and blood on my finger tip. Some were squirming. Like pieces of worms or... I was in shock. I panicked. I ran and washed my hand, and if any of those poor men were still clinging to life, they went down the drain. I thought it was a hallucination. A terrible dream. Until I saw the news the next morning. The Ladybird was a mid sized fishing vessel, that disappeared off the coast of Maine that night. No survivors found. I read each name off that manifest. Read them every night since and...."

The boy stammered. "Well that's not your fault. You couldn't have known that--"

"It doesn't matter what I knew. I killed 30 people in the real world."

"Yeah, but on accident. And that's the part I don't get. How did they shrink down and get in your fish tank?"

The man sighed. Then he chuckled but there was no hint of mirth in his voice. "Magic?"

He looked at the boy, and the boy looked back, and saw the man's eyes were still watery. Now they were blood shot too.

"I thought you said you didn't believe in magic."

He shrugged, "Yeah I don't. I just mean I don't understand it. I think... Well this is gonna sound crazy, but look through those binocs, and maybe crazy doesn't seem so farfetched. Well, I don't actually think what we're seeing is in the tank. Not really. I think that the tank is kind of... Like a set of binoculars, almost. They don't just focus light. They kind of focus everything. Light, matter, sound. All of it. And I think there's some kind of portal, or a-- I dunno-- a wormhole or some shit."

The boy shook his head. "I'm not a big fan of a man your age using that kind of language."

The old man swung his gaze towards the boy and glowered-- then his mouth broke into a smile, a real one. And he laughed, from the belly. "Well you got me there. Touche. But, truly: I can't make sense of this... stuff. But I think the man who gave me this tank was a visitor. From another time or another dimension. He brought technology that's way beyond anything we know on Earth, in the present day. It focuses anything in a certain field of view-- and can teleport things it views."

"Well what else have you teleported?"

The man frowned. "Nothing. Nothing else, and nothing ever. Don't you see the danger?"

The boy nodded. "Yeah. We can't teleport people or anything, but why not a whale? If you used your net to scoop up a whale you could have a miniature whale as a pet."

The man's frown only deepened. "This isn't a game. Whales are intelligent creatures, and ripping one out of its natural habitat to plop it in a glass cage would be cruel. I'd have to teleport miniature fish for it to eat and it would probably starve to death, lonely and sad and confused."

The boy kinda shifted, uncomfortable with how quickly his excitement had been brutalized by reality. "Well we should still test the limits of this thing, to see what's possible. We could teleport rocks and stuff so we're not hurting anything."

Then his smile lit up like a beacon: "Wait! We could find that floating island of garbage. Mrs. Hamil was talking about that today in school. It's a big problem because people have dumped so much plastic-- but what if we found the island and just-- WHAT IF WE CLEANED IT UP!"

His excitement was so pure, so strong, so good. He knew they had the power to make the world a better place and he wanted to do it.

The man shook his head. "That's tempting. Very tempting. But we'd still be playing God. Too many things could go wrong. If we tried to scoop the whole island we might kill people without even knowing. Researchers maybe. Not to mention animals around the area. Dipping our giant fingers in the ocean might screw up the ecosystem in ways we can't predict."

"Or it might-- help the ecosystem!"

The man shook his head, sternly. "All this tank is good for is viewing. We can't steal a pet whale, but if you look for a while you'll see whole whale pods migrating. Or dolphins playing. If you look deep enough you'll see strange fish that live in the dark trenches. The whole of earth's oceans are right there to look at. The pollution bothers me too, but we can't mess with things beyond our understanding. If you find the garbage island, just look somewhere else."

He looked up at his shelves and laughed again. "All this talk kinda makes my little store look like a joke, doesn't it. So take another look at the tank. But the rules are the rules: no touching."

The boy went back to the binoculars, and zoomed past the sail boat and down into the water. And he gazed for a long time.

He found he could look in as much detail as he liked.

There was a whole world between the glass, and he could see it all.

He watched a family of dolphins for a while, then he asked: What about, like the shore line? What are the limits here.

The man smiled. And the boy saw the kindness in his face. "Yeah. It's not just an aquarium. It's a terrarium too. If you zoom out until you see land, then zoom in on the shore line you'll see what I mean."

The boy zoomed out, until he could see full lines of the oceans and contours of land. Then he zoomed in on a corner of the earth that was dotted with islands. As he narrowed the view they saw trees and turquois water.

At a certain distance they could hear shore birds squaking. And he asked, "Can they hear us? or see us? the people on the inside?"

The man shook his head. "I think it's all one way, unless you cross the threshold. They never seem to notice a giant eye staring at them, and our voices would be like thunder and earthquakes. No, we are just unseen observers. Unless we interfere.

And the boy quietly thought and a terrible realization bloomed in his mind: the danger of this tank thing. It went far beyond fishing boats.

"What if someone, like a bad guy or something, were to get a hold of this aquarium and zoom out on New York City and then just start plucking buildings."

"Yeah. I know."

"Well why don't we destroy the tank?"

The man shrugged. "I don't know if we can. I've thought about it but never tried. I also don't know what would happen if we did. Magic or advanced technology, or what-- this thing is almost godlike. Who knows what kind of fallout might come from it's destruction. I don't like the idea of destroying something that's all webbed up with space time."

The boy looked very thoughtful, then aimed the binoculars. He zoomed out. And he zoomed out. And he zoomed out. Until the earth was a globe, just hovering in the middle of the tank. Half the globe was dark and the other half light, and that shadow defied the lighting in the store.

And the man shuddered. The boy said, "We can't. We obviously can't-- but what if we took the Earth out. Like what if we tried to pick it up. We're on it, what would happen. Would we....."

Then he zoomed out farther and farther and the moon came into view. And these bodies shrank and a blazing sun became visible, and the man and boy shielded their eyes.

"How far does it go?"

The man did not answer.

"How far does it zoom out?"

The man stammered. "I have no clue. I never even tried leaving Earth."

He looked at the boy, and the boy thought the man looked fragile then. Like a child himself.

The man said, "Maybe this is a bad idea."

And the boy said, "Yeah, but...." And then he kept on zooming. And they turned off the lights in the shop and saw an aquarium full of stars, a like pool of ink, full of deep sea gemstones.

And then they were swimming in the milky way. Galaxies swung into view and then shrank down to dust, and as far as they zoomed they found no end.

Then the boy set the binoculars on the step stool and his eyes seemed to glow with their own cosmic light and his voice burned with an intensity far beyond his years when he said, "I really need to be going now. My mom told me to just pick up the fish food and then come right back. She's probably worried that I'm up to no good."

***

And the man finally blinked. He saw the bag the boy had left behind, with the protein flakes and the receipt. He whispered, "Hey kid, you forgot your shit."

And he looked at the aquarium. And he thought about that little boat, with the thirty little lives and the tiny bits of blood on his fingers. And he saw a universe burning right there in miniature, and he knew somewhere, he himself was floating on an atom around one of those distant stars and he felt no malignity only curiosity when he wondered: What if I pinch it all?"

***

The boy hardly touched his dinner. He'd seen-- for a glimpse-- through the eye of God, and he wanted to look in on all the planets his own kind didn't even know existed. But more than anything, he wanted to zoom back to Earth, find that garbage island, and scoop it the hell away.

***