Johan and the Hagfish
Johan, or Joanna - as his mother still calls him - keeps his eyes shut as the digestive juices burn into his skin. His entire life has been marked by the struggle to survive, his absolute refusal to be defined by others and to live as free as can be. But in this moment, most likely his final moment on this plane, the outcome is clear. He’s been caught. It’s game over. This is where he will perish.
Oh, we wish we could tell you this has a happy ending, how some deus ex machina saves him from this predicament. But we are not one to lie. We can tell you what he thinks. He reflects on the last day of his life.
The docks of the marina creaked and swayed as he walked past the moored vehicles of his hometown. If he kept his head held high enough he could pretend there were no docks, and he walked upon water like Christ. Barn swallows skated past him in the air, forsaking their namesake by taking nest in a series of ransack bird homes nailed to harbor posts. Small yachts and occasional tugboats lined his peripherals, but Johan experienced almost a tunnel vision as he strutted for the end of the marina. It was there, bright orange and black like some gaudy Halloween decoration, he walked up to the massive sailboat nicknamed the S.S. Pterosaur, a crew of two preparing for launch.
This boat, not exactly a replica of a 19th century ship but coming close, was the largest vessel in the harbor, and famous around town for being the only boat available for day rental. Some people, particularly those within the town’s yacht club, sneered at this. They made excuses - how the ship had never been up to code, how the accessible fare brought down the value of other rental vessels - but this was all to say they were not happy with the lower middle class floating upon what they perceived to be their waters. The owners of S.S. Pterosaur responded, kindly, with “Deal with it.”
It goes without saying that this was the one aquatic voyage Johan could afford at this point in time, and of all the people in the South Sound, Johan was the one who needed to get far away the fastest. The S.S. Pterosaur crew - an anti-civ queer couple who just so happened to look like a heterosexual pair because in fact they were - did not ask questions. Dirty, torn jean-vests, camo undershirts, and Carhart hats that had never seen an honest day of hard labor, this motley pair secretly came from wealth, and from time to time attended support meetings in order to deal with their “status privilege.” The ship, truthfully told, had been bought with the woman’s father’s money. This fact was never, of course, advertised on the xerox fliers that scoured the punk DIY streets - but it was a well-known secret that most in the scene decided to overlook. Because cheap boat rides.
Gladly taking the measly sum of $150, which in today’s economy amounted to about $15, the anti-civ couple set sail toward the heart of the Salish Sea, out of Budd Inlet and into the frying pan. Johan sat at the bow, gladly leaving the city, and perhaps his entire life, behind him. No one need know he was the culprit of what had been wrought, but just in case, it was better to leave than risk capture. None of the three had to endure awkward small talk, until they reached the bounds of the Nisqually Reach. Ergo after that, to the male’s reluctance, Johan had to be asked just how far he wished to traverse, as the S.S. Pterosaur had never ventured further than McNeil island.
It was then, to their surprise, Johan offered another $500 if they took him all the way to Cape Flattery. This had never been suggested. The male portion of the couple almost outright refused. Despite his outloud opposition of SatNav systems and GPS, he hated to admit to himself that his manual navigation skills were lacking. He could not even travel by the stars. The woman, however, knew a fellow scoundrel when she met one, and she raised Johan’s wager to $1,500. In the grand scheme of things this amount of money meant nothing to her and her family, but to one from wealth, all money is precious. Johan, well beyond his means by ways he would never admit aloud, agreed, and the anti-civ man had to make do with the smartphone his girlfriend had kept in her pocket the entire time.
Cape Flattery, if you must know, is at the very tip of Washington State, and it treacherous to get to for those inexperienced in sailing. Johan had faith in his guides, more so than they had faith in themselves, and he watched as islands such as Bainbridge, Marrowstone and Whidbey passed by on the sea’s horizon.
Upon midnight: a storm. Cape Flattery was still a ways away, and the New Dungeness lighthouse shone as a pinpoint from where our crew fought for their very lives. The anti-civ man wanted, pleaded, to go back, but the woman refused, not having been paid yet. With another wave over the decks, she had to admit that continuing would perhaps be ill advised. Johan refused, trying to take the wheel from the man’s grasp. It was then the woman swiped his phone and, struggling with rain and seawater on the touchscreen, managed to Venmo herself $3,500 for the trouble Johan had caused. As a team, the anti-civ couple wrangled Johan from his grasp of the wheel, and threw his wretched soul overboard into the salt water waves.
Johan could not register what had happened to him, only that he was wet and the sea was dark and he could not breathe. He did not have long though, as a warmness enveloped him which he could not hope to understand. He was not alone in that Salish Sea.
It was not Leviathan that found him, but something far worse. Although in most cases ridiculous, word of sea serpents has permeated human gossip for hundreds of years, only to be disregarded as either the penises of whales in heat or, more preferably, dying oarfish. But this was neither. Science claims this thing untrue, that while slime eels do exist, they do not grow up to lengths of eighty feet. But what do scientists know of the churn of dark waters and the souls of nature’s last kept secrets? For under the waves, a great serpentine behemoth swallowed Johan. Jawless and coated in mucus, the aquatic wyrm welcomed Johan with an always open hydrostat lined with eight assorted barbels all around.
We will not tell you that he prays, nor does he discover some knife in his pocket and slashes his way out to safety. Neither is he ejected from this flesh prison and thankfully travels afar to preach faith in Ninevah. Johan only has about sixty seconds to reflect on all of this as he is digested. Johan does not think of escape, rather, he reminisces on what he did, the people he betrayed. The details of the crime do not matter to us. Johan wonders if perhaps he deserves all this, that to be thrown overboard and swallowed by a massive eel of slime is payback enough for the sins of his life. We disagree with this, but he cannot hear us. As his skin burns off, as he is dissolved, Johan becomes one with the Salish Sea, and he joins our ranks, as those who have perished, never once reaching the Pacific.