Intam's Question

• Caitlyn Tan, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2022

A repugnant smell wafted up Intam’s nostrils as the sweaty throng of fisherman and prospective buyers filled the underground market. He could already feel a thin layer of perspiration forming on his brow as he pulled his wagon. Heaving, he picked up a fish, a big plump one. Everyday he thought he would get used to this work, but even when he finally felt confident that day, the next he would arrive with the same debate buzzing in his mind. It was like scaling a sheer rock face as the sun rose, only that the mountain face crumbled each time he seemed to reach the top when the sun set. Reluctantly he picked up the sharp silver blade, which glinted harshly in the market’s fluorescent lights. In his peripheral he saw his good neighbour Ahkam confidently slicing and dicing in smooth clean arcs.
‘You got to do what you got to do,’ Ahkam whispered encouragingly, finishing another of those perfect swipes. Intam swallowed, as if there was a golf ball in his throat and hesitantly looked down the point of the razor-sharp weapon. To kill, or not to kill? The fish’s scales squirmed impatiently as its life was drawn out cruelly by his indecision, its gills shuttering in vain. Was it immoral to kill an animal of the Creation? Surely all life was precious. Was it sinful to keep the fish waiting from its doom? Picturing the innocence of his two children, their light-brown eyes staring intelligently back into his, their bodies hungry and ready to grow. Did their lives matter more and would that apply to the sea creatures–
The knife struck down on the shimmery-scaled gills, dissecting the head out of habit, taking care to cut the nerves, hurriedly discarding the fish’s eyes which seemed to follow him like the vacant eyes of the Mona Lisa. Watching, waiting, knowing of the terrible crimes he had committed against its kind. How many would end in this way? He shuddered at the carcass of the fish – severed from life – helpless on the white cutting board, its crimson blood blooming, staining the board’s previously white purity. The swirling reds of pain and loss. Memories of the carnage in his hometown, littering dozens of fields in poppy-coloured blood – everywhere. Names whispered in the wind, the grass a resting place. Nowhere to go but flee and leave those he had called friends. He was a lucky survivor, he thought, the drumming of his heart receding like a wave, only quietening in the depths of the night as he struggled to gain control of his mind’s black depths. All he could do was hope; hope that it would not sabotage him, hope tomorrow would be a better day – he had to do this, he had to do this. Thinking of his little people, waiting expectantly for their father to come home he felt the weight of his responsibility. The fish, the blood, life, death. He knew his priorities-family came first.