Fish swims along the length of Man’s calf, a span of rainbow fins across lonely skin. Man stands in the shallow part of the sea and remembers the first time he held her hands. It was the summer of three protein shakes and zero carb swim sessions of eight-pack glory and changing girls more frequently than his own underwear. He’d stood in the exact same spot and relished in the feeling of being the Man. Conqueror of two hundred meter breaststrokes, thus the world. He’d looked at her and saw challenge. He liked his side quests.

Man lifts his ankle like bait, and watches as the sea’s translucent creatures sidle up for a nibble, their bodies about six inches long, all boneless and unwrinkled. Just like her when they’d first started dating. For someone so conventionally pretty, she’d had an explosive amount of “what-ifs” and “can-you-imagine?” Dragged him into museums and photographed rocks the colour of his boredom. Get some and get out, his friends advised as they exchanged nudes of chicks they were bedding. She’s too much for you.

Fish brushes past Man’s kneecap, across his inner thigh. He remembered the second time she’d touched him there, giggling about some dumb TV commercials whilst her garlic-tinged fingers reached higher, and he remembers how frustratingly slow they’d been moving, and how unexpectedly endearing it was to hear all the trivial little information she spouted at random. They had known each other for exactly fifteen days and four hours when he blurted out, “I’ll marry you,” and meant it.

She’d shaken her head at him, pressing her body so close he tensed all over. “This is only our fourth date. We’ll have to go on at least ten thousand more.”

It didn’t take that long. Three years, a hundred and eighty-three dates later, they’d stood in this very beach, and whilst he kissed her until he grew breathless, she had been busy decorating their forever home inside her head. The nursery should be blue, she had insisted, like the ocean. And yellower than the sun.

Maybe it was because they couldn’t find the right shade of yellow. Or maybe because nothing could ever be truly ocean blue, his health reports arrived before the nursery was done. He could never, still cannot, comprehend how one could be so healthy and ever so infertile. All his swimmers were weak, though he himself had won the national swimming championship thrice in a row.

She had insisted it didn’t matter, except it did. They skirted away from talking about babies or trying making them. Their conversations became rooted in the direct present: lunch, TV programs, dinner. Half attempted jibs and humour and conversations Sahara dry. Somewhere between the second round of fertility treatment and punching the friends who’d offered to sleep with his wife, he considered divorce. But his hairline was receding, and the thought of giving up three hot meals and an even hotter wife sounded like a death sentence.

So Man tries to carry on but everything was a reminder of his own inability: the invitations to colleagues’ baby showers, the clumsy toddling children on the streets. Even his parents’ presence at his baby sister’s graduation was soiled by the echo of what he could never have. His wife suggested therapy, and dates, and adoption but she didn’t understand, could never understand what it meant to be cursed with such an inability. To be reduced to half a man. He began pulling away, ignoring the hurt in her eyes. Invented meetings and trips, and excuses until he could do what he’s doing right now: stand on an empty beach. Live in the memories of what-used-to-be.

The wind picks up, curling across the greenery-covered sand dunes. Amber clouds scuttle by.  The water is, had been, and will always be the same tepid, promised blue. In serenity, the truth sinks in. Man knows he’ll have to be better or at least pretend. Read her never-ending texts. Listen to her yabbering. Respond when she cries. He’s seen what happens to husbands who don’t put in the perfunctory work. The rebellion usually starts in the kitchen, with meals uncooked and dishes piling up, then moves to the undone laundry, before one of them flaps the divorce flag in the air. But for heaven’s sake, he’s never cried. Why is she allowed to have so many tears?

The cool waves break across his body. Fish swims further up, past the end of his leg, towards the source of all unhappiness, and opens its mouth. For a long, eternal second, neither Man nor Fish moves. A shiver races up Man’s spine. Endless possibilities in his head. Fish can be lethal. This time next week, his family and friends will all gather for his funeral. A sob rises in his throat. He can’t die. He hasn’t even left a damn will.

Or Fish might be radioactive. His balls will swell twice their size. Some chicks dig that. Didn’t they? Once the venom is fully absorbed by his useless seeds, it would heal all his problems. This time next year, his baby will have been able to lift their heads whilst lying on their soft tummy.

Oh God, what if Fish has razor teeth? He’d be mono-testicular and infertile. A eunuch. What will his wife say?

Man looks down at the fish. Would it really be so bad for him to lose a testicle? He’d be the victim of a freak accident. His wife could never divorce him if he loses an organ, whether or not he puts enough work into their marriage. She’s too good of a person.

Fish, as if hearing his reasoning, doesn’t bite down. It flicks its tail, darts through the sea in one smooth movement, and disappears into the beyond, leaving Man alone.

Man stares at the setting sun, touches his intact manhood and with a long sigh, slowly steps out of the water.