Ode to a Fish Sandwich Read Online Free PDF Page B

neck, slipped off his shoes and socks, and removed the snorkel gear from the pack.
    Leaving the rest of his belongings on the table, he carried the mask, snorkel, and flippers to the shoreline.
    The protective mound of boulders offshore from the diner formed a curve-shaped bank that created a perfect swimming area. The calm water in the protected bay sparkled sapphire blue against the soft white sand.
    After staring at the picturesque view for the duration of the previous day’s lunch session and dipping his feet several times in the tranquil surf, the doctor had returned determined to explore the aquatic life he felt certain he would find beneath the water’s surface.
    Wobbling on the beach, he squeezed his bare feet into the flippers and prepared to enter.
    Winnie walked onto the diner’s back porch, quickly joined by her three children. Concerned, she hollered down to the beach.
    “Don’t you drown, Dr. Jones. If you get into trouble out there, I’m not going in after you.”
    Crossing her thick arms over her chest, she muttered under her breath.
    “Lord, help him.”
    ~
    GENTLE WAVES SPLASHED over the doctor’s flippers as he waded into the sea, soaking his pants legs and causing the lightweight fabric to cling to his shins.
    He leaned over, balancing his weight first on one foot and then the other, trying to shake the sand from the flippers’ snug rubber fittings.   
    That’s when he saw the first fish—the first of many.
    A hundred or so minnow-sized beings swarmed in the shallows, darting in and around his ankles. He wiggled the flipper’s webbed toes, marveling at the micro-movements of the tiny fish as they easily darted out of the way.
    The doctor sloshed a couple yards deeper into the water, to where the sea wrapped around his waist. His pants now floated freely, the baggy fabric moving with the rocking tide.
    Here, the fish were larger and more varied, their bodies decorated with zebra striping and patches of neon orange and yellow.
    Fascinated, he tried to pull the snorkel mask over his head to get a better look—but his canvas hat got in the way.
    He’d forgotten to take it off back on the beach.
    He struggled for several minutes, trying to maneuver the snorkel and mask around the hat, before finally conceding defeat.
    On his return to the picnic table, he opted not to remove his flippers, instead resorting to an awkward duck-walking maneuver that caused Winnie’s children, still lined up along the diner’s shaded porch, to collapse into fits of giggles.
    Dr. Jones waved good-naturedly to his audience as he returned to the sea.
    Resolutely pushing through the water to the hip-level mark, he tugged the mask over his head. The rubber rim slipped on the sunscreen coating his face, before the suction took hold, clamping the plastic mold around his nose. Breathing through his mouth, he adjusted the snorkel tube and eased himself into a horizontal floating position.
    The doctor took a few steadying breaths through the tube, letting the air flow into his chest, creating buoyancy. His ears filled with water, clogging out any sounds from above, magnifying the curious gurgling noises of the deep.
    He thought himself alone in the bay off the diner’s beach, a wad of wet clothing attached to a snorkel-tube, a silent flippered observer.
    He was completely oblivious to the commotion his presence had caused in the aquatic community below.
    The doctor’s progress was being followed with great interest—by someone other than Winnie and her children.

Chapter 8
Besotted
    SHE FIRST SAW him from a distance—the fully dressed, pasty-faced dermatologist—and he immediately caught her eye.
    His stiff lurching movements were unlike those of any other creature that inhabited the sea, making him at once both foreign and exotic.
    She’d never seen anything like the ghostly white glow of his skin, which flashed in the water as his clothes flapped about his bony limbs. She herself swam without such bulky encumbrances,