Nina Lin was probably the first person in the universe to visit to visit an aquarium and not have fun. It's not that she's anti-learning or anti-sightseeing or whatever; it's just that she would've preferred to come here alone and not with the three bimbos she was conned into coming with.
Their names were Kayla, Penny, and Carrie, but she was referring to them as A-A, A-B, and A-C, respectively. The A stood for associate, and that was all they were anymore: people she knew by name and could talk to, but not people she knew by name and wanted to talk to.
Which begs the question of what she was doing here at the aquarium with them. Well, long story short, it all started with a Facebook message from Kayla. She said that since it had been about seven years since the four of them graduated high school (and almost as long since they last spoke), they should all get together and catch up. Meeting up at the aquarium was Carrie's idea, because she was the group's biggest fan of fishes and other creatures of the sea.
Nina didn't want to go. She thought up all sorts of excuses on how she couldn't make it because of work or how her mom was recovering from a tragic yoga accident and needed to be there for her. Thing is, though, Nina has this condition where she can't tell a lie. No matter how hard she tries or rehearses it in her head, when she goes to say it, the truth is all she spits out.
Does this dress make me look fat?
Absolutely.
Anyway, Nina agreed to go. Funny how the one day she wanted to go to work, they wouldn't let her. “Maybe I'll enjoy myself,” she told herself. “Maybe it'll be like old times,” she said to herself. But those old times expired on graduation day, and everybody just kinda stopped talking to one another. Nina tried to keep the conversations going back then, but life got in the way, she guessed, and nobody could be bothered to keep the old times young. It wasn't too much of a stretch to say that her high school friends not staying in touch left her more than a little bitter.
And so here she was at a place she didn't want to be at with people she didn't want to see.
Water.
Fish.
Exciting.
She trailed behind the three of them in a shark tunnel as they laughed and chatted and caught up on their lives. Kayla worked for the state. She didn't say what she did, but, quote, the pay was nothing to scoff at, unquote. Penny had been a full-time home care nurse, but now she was a full-time mom. She even brought her kid with her. And Carrie was a social worker and the self-described boss of the elderly. Also, her credit score was incredible. Not that Nina cared. She had amazing credit, too. Not that they cared. They were all going to go home and forget this day ever happened, anyway, which Nina couldn't wait to do. In fact, she was way ahead of the crowd; she couldn't tell you the color of the floor tiles despite staring at them the entire time.
“You've been so quiet, Nina. Are you all right?” A-B asked.
Nina looked up from the floor tiles and saw that all eyes were on her. “Oh, uh, sorry. I'm not feeling 100% today,” she said, which was vague enough that it wasn't a lie.
“Poor thing. Sorry to drag you out here today when you weren't feeling good.”
“It's—” She couldn't even say it was fine. “Don't worry about it.”
“You say that, but I'm a mom now. All I do anymore is worry.”
Where was that attitude after graduation?
“So, what're you up to these days?” A-C asked, which was the last question Nina wanted them to ask, aside from “You wanna come hang out with us?”
“I, uh...” She might not have been able to lie. “...work in a restaurant.” But that didn't mean she had to tell the whole truth.
“Yeah? What do you do there?”
Unless, of course, she was pressed for the whole truth. “...I'm a cook...” Cooks are respectable. Some even have their own t.v. Shows.
“Please tell me you work at a five-star restaurant,” A-B said with a tone that said, “Now I'll be able to afford eating at one if she can get me a discount.”
“...No, it's just a regular old restaurant...” It'd be very generous to call it three-stars.
“Oh, okay.”
“How is it? Do you like it?” A-C asked.
“...Could be better...” Much better.
“...Well, it pays the bills, right?”
“...Right...”
They turned back around, and Nina went back to staring at the floor tiles. They weren't as loud as they had been, and she felt like they were talking about how far she hadn't gotten in life. Like now that everybody had graduated college, if you didn't have a career, you were nothing, a nobody, destined to stay stuck in a rut that got deeper with each sunset. A career, by the way, is well-paying work that you wake up for everyday. A job just keeps the lights on and puts food on the stay; enjoyment was optional but in most cases impossible. Nina wished her superpower was invisibility instead. More on that superpower later.
She slowed her pace, hoping the Triple As would forget about her and leave her behind, and tried to distract herself with the fishes and sharks swimming by. Most of the fish were coral reef species, so they were small, colorful, and probably happier than she was. Because, you know, they were fish, and if they woke up one morning and realized they were fish, they'd scream.
Nina was no ichthyologist, but she knew a few species. Like the frogfish she found sitting on the sand, staring out the glass. Despite the name, a frogfish bore no resemblance to a frog, and instead bore resemblance to a fish that looked in the mirror and realized it was a fish and hadn't yet gotten over the shock.
She stopped to observe it. You're just like me, huh? Stuck where you are with no place to go.
The frogfish didn't regard her.
At least people pay money to see you. Me, people keep sending credit card offers and sale ads in the mail.
The frogfish remained oblivious.
Nina moved her eyes from the fish she emphasized with to the coral reef that bloomed fifteen feet behind the glass. The fish swimming among the coral swam like they had till the end of time to explore the reef. None of them seemed to realize they were fish.
Her eyes scoured the habitat, picking out the species she knew by name. That yellow and neon blue one was a Queen Angelfish. That black one with the white polka dots and yellow mouth was a Clown Triggerfish. And that one over there with the funny-looking mouth was a Parrotfish. At least it bore some resemblance to the animal it was named for.
She identified plenty more, and when she focused her vision, she saw her reflection in the glass. It was a living thing she knew better than any random species of fish. The person staring back wasn't someone she was proud of. If she could leave her here in the aquarium, she would.
Nina raised her hand and touched the glass for no particular reason. Maybe to see how thick the glass was. It was a little thick.
She noticed a reflection standing beside her. It was a person. More specifically, a silhouette. A little taller than her, a little wider, too, and better described as a human-shaped hole cut into space than a body taking it up. It was weird to look at.
“Who do you belong to?” Nina asked it, though she had her suspicions based on its shape.
“Layla.”
“Thought so.” She resumed her dreaded walk through the shark tunnel and tapped the Layla silhouette on the back to signal it. “Come on. No talking.”
It followed.
They caught up with the Triple As at the exit of the shark tunnel. They were looking at a pamphlet for the aquarium's exhibits.
“Where should we go next?” A-A asked.
“They have a sea otter exhibit this way. How's that sound?” A-B proposed.
“What do you think, Nina?” A-C asked as she was trying to slip past them.
“Sorry, but I have someone I need to talk to,” she said, and showcased the Bluetooth she pulled from her pocket. She couldn't lie with her mouth, but she could lie with her gestures. Loopholes. Gotta love 'em. “I'll meet you back in the lobby?”
“It's okay. We can wait,” A-B said.
“Nah, this is gonna take a while, so don't let me ruin your fun.”
“All right. Then we'll meet up with you in the lobby in twenty or thirty minutes?” A-C said.
“Yup. Enjoy the sea otters.”
“Thanks.”
They went to see some sea otters, while Nina led her dark, new associate to the lobby.
“Think everything's all right?” “I'm sure she's fine.” “Probably just checking in with a family member,” Nina heard them say as they walked away. Life was easier when people filled in the blanks themselves.
Back in the main lobby, which was wide and fish-themed and had a fancy fountain in the center, Nina sat the Kayla silhouette on the rim of the fountain and hooked the Bluetooth to her ear. Nobody else could see the black Kayla, and she wanted to avoid the looks people gave her, because it was otherwise going to look like she was talking to herself.
Nina sat down. “What brings you out here?” she asked the Buddy, which is what she calls these things.
The Kayla Buddy leaned forward and put its head in its hands. “I think the better question is what doesn't bring me out here.”
“And here I thought you were having so much fun.”
“Anyone can fake a smile. It doesn't take much.”
“You been faking that smile since you got here?”
“I've been faking it for far longer than that.”
“How long's far longer?”
“Can't say. For the last two or three years at least,” K-Buddy said.
“What's wrong exactly?”
“Life's been getting to me.”
“A bunch of family members die?”
“Nothing dramatic like that,” it said. “It's like—I'm sure you can understand this—all life is about is waking up for work so that you can earn a paycheck so that you have a roof over your head for when you go to bed. And then you wake up, go to work, come home, go to bed, wake up, go to work, blah blah blah, ad infinitum, as egotists like to say.”
“Working for the state's not that fulfilling, huh?”
“You actually believed that? I only said that because I'm too embarrassed to admit that I work two minimum wage jobs,” K-Buddy said. “In the mornings, I work at a clothing store, and in the evenings, I work at a grocery store.”
“Didn't you go to college?”
“It's cute how you think a degree equals a good-paying job.”
“You got a psychology degree, didn't you?”
“No, I got a marketing degree. You know, something useful. Carrie's the one with the useless degree. But thanks to her dearest daddy, who's great a pulling a few strings, she's got a bank account enjoying a 60k salary.”
“Why not ask her if her dad's business or whatever is hiring?”
“I have. Multiple times. But as it happens, they're 'never hiring,'” K-Buddy said, lifting its head from its hands long enough to do air quotes. “Then I turn around and they've taken on three new interns.”
“It's the same deal at my job,” Nina said. “They brag about how they only promote from within, then they hire a no-name manager who's never picked up a spatula a day in his life.”
“How long have you been there?”
“Five years, I think.”
“Jesus. How have you managed to put up with that for so long?”
“I ask myself that same question everyday,” Nina said. “I guess it helps that I only work the one job and spend the rest of my day not thinking about it by watching YouTube videos or whatever. It's not much, but it's the closest thing I have to a hobby anymore. I can't imagine you have that luxury.”
“You guessed it. I go straight from one job to the next. I'd be lucky if I could watch a ten minute video between jobs.”
“It sounds like you hate me for having even that.”
“Hate? No. Jealous of? Absolutely,” the Buddy said. “All I do anymore is work and sleep. It doesn't feel like I'm living anymore, just that I'm...existing. I've become so fed up with how worthless my life's become that I set up this little trip hoping to relive our high school days and maybe find a little optimism for the future, but no. That's not how things work. We've all grown so far apart that talking to one another feels like a formality.”
“Things change.”
“No. Things don't change. You realize that life's life. Not a fairy tale.”
“...”
As you might've gathered by now, a Buddy is a manifestation of a person's innermost thoughts and feelings, and innermost thoughts and feelings are never good ones. Nina couldn't pinpoint an exact date when she started seeing and talking with Buddies, but it's been for as long as she's been life's biggest critic, i.e., when her job as a short order cook turned from all right to a form of torture on par with the Judas Cradle.
There was no rhyme or reason for when or where a Buddy was going to show up. She could be out buying bananas, one would show up, and then she'd have to sit down and listen to it complain about how life's a terrible flick and nobody's getting their money back. Then they'd feel better, leave, and she'd never hear from them again. She didn't know if a venting Buddy was the same as a venting person, so it was up in the air if her encounters had any bearing on the Buddy's owner's life.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” the Buddy asked.
“Why not?”
“...Have you ever thought about killing yourself?”
“Tried it once. It didn't work. Obviously.”
“Finally got pushed to the edge because of your job, huh?”
Nina shrugged. “Maybe, but not really. I just woke up one morning and thought, 'Oh, my life's worthless, might as well kill myself.'”
“When was this?”
“About three years ago? I'm pretty sure this was right before my twenty-first birthday,” she said. “I decided to go with the classic hanging, but we didn't have any rope, so I went with a dog leash instead. It snapped, and instead of breaking my neck, I broke my ankle. My mom had to drive me to the emergency room.”
“You didn't tell her that you broke your ankle trying to kill yourself, did you?”
“'Course not. She would've cried and yelled at me, and once she was done crying and yelling, she would've handcuffed herself to me to make sure I didn't try it again.”
“That reminds me of something a coworker told me once. He said that nobody loves you like your mother.”
“Why do you think I haven't tried it since?” She was twirling a strand of her hair with a finger. “So. I take it you're thinking of offing yourself? Shuffling yourself off this mortal coil, as fancy folks like to say?”
“.....Yeah.....” A Buddy couldn't tell a lie.
“Can't say I blame you, to be honest. If I had to work at two restaurants, I probably would've tried killing myself again a long time ago.”
“It's not just the jobs. I feel as though everyone's achieved something since high school. Like, Penny's got her kid, and Carrie's got her job that pays well and that she seems to enjoy. I feel like everyone's gone and left me behind.”
“That makes two of us.”
“No. You've moved on, too.”
“How do you figure?”
“Look at you. Back in high school, you were as dumb and average as the rest of us. I still remember the time you sang Lady Gaga's Poker Face at the top of your lungs during lunch.”
“Please don't remind me of that,” Nina said, hiding her face in her hands. “I don't even like that song anymore.”
“But you've matured,” the Buddy went on. “You're so calm and collected now. The Nina I knew would've said, 'Don't be down. Here, have a beer from my dad's stash. It'll make you feel better.'”
“She sounds like a good friend.”
“She was. But beer's not going to solve my problems.”
“As least she tried.”
“Just like parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids are 'trying' to keep them healthy?”
“I'd prefer not to be compared to them,” Nina said, a tad hostile.
“I didn't mean it like that. Sorry.” K-Buddy twiddled its thumbs. “It's just that, when you get angry at one thing, it's easy to get angry at everything. Neighbors, politicians, assholes at the store, your old high school friends.”
Nina gave her a sharp glare from the corner of her eye. That last item seemed to be directed at her.
“I'm not stupid, Nina,” K-Buddy said, apparently aware of her gaze. “You hate being here today, don't you?”
“.....Yeah.....” But in return, Nina couldn't tell a lie, either.
“That's one thing about you that hasn't changed: you're as easy to read as ever.”
“Sorry, but I'm still bitter about how you, Carrie, and Penny stopped texting after we graduated,” she said. “Call me petty if you want, but that's how I feel.”
“You're petty. But so am I. I once quit a job because my manager made a shit joke about an orchestral song I was listening to.”
“Since when do you listen to orchestral music?”
“Since never. Although I was trying it out at one point, hoping it might perk my spirits at work,” the Buddy said. “Most of it's boring, but there're a few good songs here and there.”
“Sorry, but I'm not the biggest fan of orchestral music. Though I do enjoy a good sax solo.”
“You don't strike me a jazz-type of person.”
“Eh. I never got into it, but every now and then, I come across a song that has a sax solo that makes you feel what life's about or what it should be about.”
“And what would you say life's about?”
“Beats the hell outta me.” Nina leaned back and propped her hands on the fountain's inner lip. “I just find these songs on YouTube. You can find a lot of good indie songs on YouTube, did you know that?”
“Got any recommendations?”
“Umm...” She consulted the ceiling where there were painted fishes swimming in place. “Recently, I came across this one song called Midnight City by M83.”
“What's it about?”
“Waiting for something or other? Never paid much attention to the lyrics. But it has this amazing sax solo at the end.”
“Huh.”
“If you're going to kill yourself, you might as well listen to something good first.”
“I'll have to give it a listen when I can,” it said. “Thanks.”
“No problem. I'd recommend songs more if people cared about what I think.”
“Not just for the song. Thanks for hearing me out.”
“Yeah, well, you would've stalked me to the ends of the earth if you had to, just so you could bitch about life.”
“Thanks anyway.” K-Buddy stood up.
“Got nothing else to say?”
It shook its head. “I've gotten what I wanted off my chest.”
“Really? I was expecting to be here another hour while you complain about your useless coworkers or customers who want to make your life difficult. There's no way you could be done after a ten minute talk.”
“I was looking for advice more than anything.”
“You were?”
It nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Uh, anytime...”
The Buddy started walking away. “I hope you find a decent job someday.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
“Take care.”
“You, too.”
Then it walked toward the hallway that led to the sea otters exhibit, then it was gone.
Nina removed the Bluetooth from her ear, held it in her hand as she slouched forward. And thought.
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