Photo by David Shankbone

I know, I know, I’ve said it before, but I really mean it this time. Round 3 of Build A Story will close at the end of business this Friday. So act now to put your imaginative stamp on this tale. Lend a sentence or two and let us know what happens with our main character, currently trapped inside an aquarium. Read forth and create!

I knew what Jenkins did for a living, or I knew enough anyway to make me wish I knew nothing, yet when he called sounding so desperate for help it felt good to be needed again, a feeling gone cold since Mother had died, and so, ironically perhaps, against the better judgment she’d instilled in me, I agreed to cover for him for the day.

I was a fool, and soon to be a bitter one. I had no idea what putting on that costume really meant, nor could I have expected the world it would drag me into. I had worn another’s costume before; at Mother’s insistence, the theatrical garb she kept in the steamer trunk under her bed was to be aired out every other week, and seeing it hang lifelessly from the clothesline made me sad. I took a turn in it all, and trod the boards of the attic stage, one day a lady buccaneer hunting for treasure in breeches and blouse, a rubber dagger clenched between my teeth, the next a gypsy spinning spells in a long bright skirt and silk scarves, both arms loaded down with rhinstone bangle bracelets.

But never had I been inside a costume as all-consuming as Jenkins’ was, a costume that required its own breathing apparatus. 

I wasn’t surprised that I could hear my own breath, but I was startled by the unexpected sound of my own heartbeat, pulsing through the thick costume’s layers as if the material acted like an amplifier. It was because of that amplificatication that I didn’t hear them coming. I think there were three of them, but I can’t be entirely sure because my view of the world around me was partially obstructed by the costume’s feathers which surrounded the eye-holes.

“Tell us where the orb is, Jenkins!” I heard one of the women say. I was too distracted by her tiny size to notice a blade cutting through the thick rubber tubing that supplied oxygen to my mask, but the urge to giggle was soon replaced by terror, as I recalled a warning my brother had given me ten years ago. As I started to lose consciousness his voice echoed through my head:

“If you’re gonna fall, fall sideways. And watch out for tiny women with knives.”

When I regained consciousness I was in a room, which was dimly lit by the aquarium that covered one entire wall. I didn’t know what was in it, but I sensed danger immediately as I struggled to remember how I’d come to be in the room in the first place.

“No, no!” I screamed inside, but not aloud, for who could have heard me anyway, since my awareness of the dim light from the aquarium was, in fact, an awareness of being IN the aquarium…I was nothing more than miniature, man-in-an-antique-diving-apparatus toy decoration in the aquarium of a full-sized human I did not know, and coming to realization that my only way out was to find an ally in this strange, self-contained undersea world.

I’d recently seen a video of a beluga whale listening raptly to mariachis, and could only hope that a similarly sentient creature would prove to be a finny friend.

I slowly surveyed my surroundings, and noticed a possible ally to my left at the far end of the tank. My next task was to figure out how to maneuver myself that far without attracting the attention of the full-sized people outside. This was no easy feat as my statue-feet were both fixed firmly to a round disc with a suction cup which was attached to a smooth pink stone.

I tilted slightly to my left, hoping to lift the edge of the suction cup and release its grip – would it work?

Success. I toppled forward, angled into the gravel and with great effort retained my balance. I exhaled. Only then did I realize my breathing apparatus had been mended with thick waterproof tape. A great gout of bubbles spoke for me. I threw one leg forward, then the other, and soon I was Neil Armstronging across the great basin of brightly colored pebbles, kicking up aquatic dust and making for the glass.

But passing the wrecked boat and a towering flower of kelp, light flooded my world. Light from the room door opening. Light from the hall. I froze.

JENKINS!!

I recognized his hourglass cranium, his stooped walk. If I got my hands around his throat things would be different. I focused on that. And then…

I saw.

Into the light, his massive hands approached, holding a giant plastic shark.

“Of course,” I mused bitterly, feeling betrayed, “I’m just a pawn in Jenkins’s sordid little game of ‘Bite Me.’”

Jenkins drank a glass of water and then approached the aquarium and climbed a ladder to access the hatch at the top. I was surprised to notice that he was rapidly shrinking as he climbed. By the time he reached the top he was small enough to fit inside the mouth of the shark.

And foolishly, that was the last of Jenkins. I laughed through my face port as his arm sank slowly to the bottom of the tank, middle finger extended in true Jenkins style. I watched the shark drift onto the wrecked boat and just lay there, no doubt satiated by the corpulent mortician. I maneuvered quite clumsily to the sand castle. It was a long shamble and forced me to pause, heaving up at the castle tower that rose to within an inch of the box filter. My bubbles fled me every other breath like an evaporating flock of birds.

How will this story close out? Only you know the answer…