To Know of the Moon

Personally, I have never seen the ocean. I was born in one of these enclosures, it was smaller and darker and dozens of my siblings were there. But some of the older folks in my current home have seen it! The new arrivals of the other species are also sometimes from the sea, but not me. Ironic right? It’s even in the name: seahorse, sea-horse. Even so, from what they tell me I wouldn’t say I have a bad life.

The ocean is full of peril, they tell me. Even the calm lagoons my kind are usually from are full of animals that would eat me alive the moment they saw me. The oldest seahorse in my exhibit sometimes tells me about the days before humans captured him. The lagoon stretches further than the eye can see, covered all along the bottom in blades of seagrass that reach forever upwards towards the sun. The light that shines down refracts through the clear waters, bending with the gentle furrows of the waves. However, the best sight of all, he says, is the moon.

The amount of light the moon gives changes day by day; some days it disappears completely, other days its as full and round as the sun. But the moon is never as bright as the sun; in the darkness, broken only by that gentle light, we dance. Everyone dances, all the fish of all the different species pair together and swim around one another to the ancient song of the sea. It was among one of these dances that my mentor met her, the love of his life. His moonlight, for she is all that is beautiful to him, his very reason to dance. But he has not seen her since the humans caught them, he does not know if she survived the transition to captivity. Many of our kind do not; it is why I was born and raised into it, he said, so we would fair better.

Well, I have news. Recently the humans took me back to the quarantine tanks for a while; I was bit overzealous in my swimming and scrapped myself against some rocks. Anyways, while I was there, I met her, my very own moonlight. She was in the cubical beside mine, I think she must have been new. However, there’s a problem. I have been fully recovered and back in my enclosure for more than a month now and she hasn’t been introduced to our enclosure yet. We spoke to each other every day while I was recovering, she wasn’t sick at all. When the humans cleared me to send me back, I promised I would wait for her. We should have only been apart a couple of weeks before the humans finally determined she was perfectly healthy.

So where is she? Where is my moonlight?

I asked my mentor what I should do. How can I possibly find her, confined to this exhibit? For if she isn’t here then she must be elsewhere. I refuse to believe that she didn’t make it. I will find her, I must. This enclosure feels unbearable without her. These strands of grass I hold to were once sufficient, among these stone arches settled on fine pale sand in this tank. I was content. I could live within the safety of this artificial sea. I could even live without seeing the moon although I sometimes wished to.

I was a fool. That I ever thought I could know the beauty of moonlight and live without it. Never again. I shall never truly live again if I cannot be with her. That’s why, I’m willing to do anything. I will go any distance. I will face the strongest currents, swim between the jaws of beasts, I will risk my very life to spend even one more moment in her light.

“Please, help me.” My mentor and I coil our tails around adjacent blades of grass, ignoring the ongoings of our tankmates. He turns from me, having refused this same request at least a dozen times already. I persist.

“Kid,” he sighs, “this place is so much bigger than you know. You and I are just a couple of seahorses. We can barely swim, much less walk. You think you’re some kind of mudskipper or what?” His voice is gruff and sharp, weathered. He narrows his eyes at me and jerks his head up in a dismissive motion. Perhaps if the tank were bigger, he would swim to a different anchoring point, but the other seahorses in our tank are pairs. Even if he never says it, I know seeing them twists his heart the same way it has begun to twist mine.

“Please, Morris, you’re the only one I can turn to for this.” I wrack my brain for anything I can say to convince him. “Please, she is my moonlight.” I speak quietly. Morris hears me all the same, a flash of recognition and sympathy crosses through his eyes.

“…Fine, alright kid, you win. I’ll help you with this clam-brained idea of yours.” An exasperated frown mars his long face.

“Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you thank you! I’m forever in your debt, Morris.” I can’t stop myself from swimming an enthusiastic swirl around my grass blade.

“Don’t thank me just yet kid, this’ll very well kill you.” But I couldn’t care less. Soon, I would see her again.

It was then that Morris told me I would have to enlist the help of an octopus. He once heard through the kelp line that octopuses can get in and out of any enclosure. However, they aren’t to be trusted. They’re crafty mollusks, they’ll just as soon eat you as help you, but an octopus is my best bet. The humans don’t speak Oceanic, you can make sounds at them all day, but they never seem to put two and two together; if they did, I could just ask them for help. Unfortunately, the humans aren’t a viable option.

Before I could worry about if the octopus would help me or eat me though, I would have to deliver a trans-exhibit message. Unreliable as it was, there was no telling if my message would make it intact or not. Especially since the octopus was in the shipwreck zone of the aquarium, that was all the way beyond the air tunnel for humans and the jellyfish cave. Even if my message did make it, there were no guarantees.

Still, I have to try.

After the human visiting time was over, I put my plan into action. The first step was to shout at the nearest exhibit until they noticed. Then I would have one chance to tell them who my message was for and what it was. Luckily the sea dragons noticed me quickly.

“OCTOPUS!” I pause until they nod. “I NEED YOUR HELP!” They would attach ‘seahorse exhibit’ to the end when they passed it along. If I was lucky, the simplicity of the message would protect it in transit as it was shouted between tank after tank.

All I could do now was wait, and so I did.

Long into the hours of the night, when all but the nocturnal animals would be sleeping, my efforts bore fruit—sort of. A voice called out from the dry place outside my exhibit. It was creaky, in the way Oceanic is when spoken through air instead of water.

“Who summons me? It is I, Odd Long Gus.” I peer into the faintly lit darkness. However, rather than eight-armed bulbous form I’d been told to expect, it was a long-bodied spotted pointy-nosed fish. A kind I had seen before: an eel. With their strong and thin bodies, thickly coated in mucous, with great effort they could traverse dry land. This eel had heard my message and wriggled all the way to me.

“I am Skip. It was my message, Odd Long Gus, and I thank you for coming, but it was not you I was calling for. I seek the aid of the octopus, for there is someone I must find.”

“Oho? The octopus? That’s quite gutsy of you, little seahorse. Who are you looking for?”

“I am looking for my moonlight. Her name is Rin. By chance, have you heard of her?” Hope blossoms within me.

“Afraid not, young Skip.” Only to wither. “But I am feeling generous, so I shall help you.” And then be born anew.

“You have my thanks, Kind Long Gus.” He wriggles in a way which is almost bashful.

Gus tells me he will go talk to the octopus on my behalf. If she agrees, they will return the following night. Gus promises he will return either way.

The next day is another blur of colors and forms moving past beyond the glass which separates the salty water of my home from the air outside. Humans are large creatures, but not especially so relative to some ocean dwellers. They lean their heads in close and twist their bodies at strange angles to catch a glimpse of even one of my tankmates or myself. I’ve seen them intentionally hide in corners, just to see how far the humans will go to find them.

Today as well, I drifted around the tank. Waiting.

Closing time could not come soon enough. The visitors dwindled although the lights never changed intensity like the sun would. The less people there were, the later it was. Finally, the blue person came and cleared the glass, dragging a bucket and mop behind them. This was the last signal that the day was over before they would turn off the lights.

Time crawled forward, slower than a snail across glass, before anything happened again.

“Skip! We have come! The octopus will help you!” Long Gus squeaked out. On the floor before me was the squirming form of Gus, and beside him a squished bulbous creature with large eyes.

“Hello Skip, I am called Ursula. I am told you need my assistance.” Ursula’s many arms creeped around her, all rough textured and russet colored. “I know of a way to help you, but you must trust me. Are you prepared?”

“Yes, anything, I will do whatever it takes to find Rin.” Ursula levels me with her gaze, silent and predatory.

“Well then, first, you must get in this cup.” Ursula drags forth an empty plastic cup; an item humans sometimes carry with them. Ursula used the suction cups of her feet to pull herself up the glass of my exhibit. She leaves a trail behind along the surface where her pliable body compresses against it. It doesn’t take her long to find an opening in the top that she can squeeze herself and the cup through.

Although facing her flashes a chill into my bones, I still swim forward into the opening of the cup. My fear cannot be greater than my love. Shortly thereafter she lifts the cup and me along with it from the safety of my home. Ursula has to use three arms to hold the cup now, but she manages to lower it to the floor outside without spilling too much water. I quietly bid farewell to Morris and the others in my heart in case I never see them again.

Ursula drags me along until we reach an exhibit I had only ever heard of: the penguins. She assures me that she knows a guy that can help us move faster. Supposedly he owes her a favor. When we reach the great glass wall of the penguin enclosure Ursula climbs up alone, leaving Gus and I to our own devices. It isn’t long before one of the aquatic birds approaches. She introduces us; his name is Finnegan.

“At your service,” he tells me. “For a price, that is.” Finnegan cackles as if he’s just told a joke only he understands. He tells me with pride that he’s a Chinstrap penguin; he looks to be the same black and white pattern as any other penguin I’d heard of, but I don’t tell him that.

It takes some finagling on Ursula’s part to unlock the door to the penguin exhibit. She manages to slip under the crack to the chilled environment on the other side. She moves as quickly as she can, the penguin enclosure is too cold for subtropical species. Before long Finnegan has waddled his way over to where Gus and I sat waiting, Ursula clutched onto his back around his neck.

I explain my situation to Finnegan. He tells me there’s only one other place that has seahorses in the whole aquarium. There’s a kids’ zone upstairs where they keep a single tank of seahorses. If Rin is still alive, that’s where she’ll be. I know in my heart that she is still alive, I can feel it.

Finnegan picks my cup up at the edge with his beak; the angle he holds me at sloshes some of the water out, but I still have enough to breath. Around the cup he squawks about how amazing it is that there are fish that can be out of the water as long as Gus can and even Ursula, although she isn’t a fish. I too, find myself a bit envious over how their thicker mucous coats protect them from drying out far longer than my own would if I tried to make a similar journey outside of this cup.

Finnegan carries us over to a large metal beast he calls an elevator. If we go inside, it will take us up. Ursula crawls up to push the button that will open the door; it opens with a thunderous sound and a ding. Inside there are more buttons, Ursula presses the one she tells us has an up arrow beside it, which is a human marking. The mouth of the metal beast closes. As it begins to move, I am still uncertain about whether we have just fed ourselves to it or not. The vibrations unsettle me, but I’ve already resolved myself to face whatever comes my way.

I’m doing this for Rin. For my moonlight.

The rumbling stops. The metal lips part again. Finnegan doesn’t hesitate to waddle out onto a floor of the aquarium I had never been to before. Immediately, it was both familiar and alien. Unlike the smooth sand colored walls I was used to, the walls here resembled reef rocks. They were dark browns and grays, lumpy and porous. Amorphous shapes protruding from and obscuring the neat corners that should have been where one wall collided with another. Stranger still, were the enlarged mimicries of various corals affixed to these rock-like walls.

The long branching forms of gorgonians, flat and fan-shaped stuck out at random. Further inside I can see a massive open clam shell, many times larger than the kinds I had briefly seen from afar. It looked big enough to swallow a human, except it didn’t appear to be alive. Finnegan wandered through this bizarre waterless reef until we reached a wall inset with a number of small tanks, even by my own meager standards.

Inside the nearest, a single pair of orange and white clownfish nestled into a small pink anemone.

“Please,” I call out, “can you tell me if a seahorse named Rin was brought here recently?”

“Rin?” The female groggily asks. I nod. She nudges her mate awake.

“Did a seahorse named Rin move in recently?” She asks him. The male thinks for a while before he replies.

“I believe she did, dear, with the pipefish if I remember correctly.” She is near!

“Ah yes, that’s right. She’ll be over that way, in a long display across the wall there.” She adds.

“Thank you!” I shout as I feel a smile burst onto my face. Finnegan is surely moving the same speed as always, and yet I cannot help but feel that he can’t go fast enough. She is there! Rin is within reach!

In what must have only been minutes yet felt like entire days, we made our way to the tank Rin should be inside. It was long and tall, meant to accommodate both seahorses and pipefish. Decorated inside with a mixture of rockwork and anchoring points; patches of algae grew randomly, twisting upwards towards where the light would be.

“RIN! Rin, are you there!? I am here my love!”

“Skip?” Her gentle voice replies. “Skip, is that you? But how are you here?” She looks confused, but every bit as lovely as the day I first saw her.

I introduce her to my new friends as I recount how we came to be before her.

One final obstacle remains; I must get into her tank. No openings exist on our side. We must once again travel through human doors, into a secret room the tanks can be accessed from. Rin tells us there is a door at the end of the hallway that will open to where she is. Ursula slips beneath and unlocks this door as well. This room is all white, without the same rock textures the outside has. When we once again reach Rin’s tank, Ursula helps me inside and takes a moment herself to rest in the water.

As fast as I am able, I swim to Rin, entwining our tails together.

“Gus, Ursula, Finnegan, thank you. You are true friends, and I shall forever be in your debts.” I bow my head to them in gratitude. Without them I may have never reunited with my moonlight.

When Ursula is recovered, she returns with Gus and Finnegan to their own exhibits.

Rin and I lived happily ever after, dancing in the artificial moonlight of our new home.

And somewhere, unbeknownst to me, a security guard has forever sworn off mixing Nyquil and Redbull ever again after watching a penguin and an octopus smuggle a seahorse across an aquarium.