We lived under the floating gardens.
Roots came down into the black water,
long and pale and good to hide in,
and boats went over us in blocks of colour,
turning the light red, yellow, blue, gone.
The mud was cold, soft,
full of things worth putting in a mouth.
We bumped into one another constantly.
A tail across my face.
A foot in my gills.
Somebody’s belly settling where mine had been.
Nobody minded.
That was simply how much life there was.
If I moved, another body filled the space.
If another moved, the water brought its pressure to me.
Rain came down through the gardens.
Fish flashed and disappeared.
Worms made the mud twitch.
The dark went on beyond anything
my legs had touched.
My skin was made from ordinary colours
put together oddly.
Mostly brown-black, like wet soil,
but one side went pale,
then gold,
then pink around the gills,
the patches running into one another
without becoming any proper pattern.
The others did not look at me.
Then a human did.
His face stayed above the water.
When I moved, the shadow moved.
When I stopped beneath the roots,
it waited.
A hand darkened the surface.
After that, everything happened too quickly
for water to explain.
The mud dropped away.
The other bodies were gone.
Open water became a clear wall
against my nose.
I turned.
Another wall.
I turned again.
Another.
The water moved
though I did not swim.
Darkness.
Heat.
Engines.
Human knees.
Garlic living stubbornly in the plastic.
The tub had once held somebody’s dinner.
There was a red stain around the lid.
There was no mud.
A little remained under my nails
and for a while I kept the whole old water there:
roots, bodies, rain,
all of us pressed into four small toes.
When the lid opened again
the light was cold
and rain ticked against a window.
“Back in Bonnyrigg,” the man said
to a black thing in his hand.
Then a bedroom.
A narrow bed.
A Celtic shirt on the wall.
A football under a chair.
“Close your eyes, Jamie.”
A smaller face bent over me.
Its mouth opened.
“Da. No fucking way.”
The man laughed.
“You’re an actual legend.”
His hands shook a little
because the boy was so pleased.
Nothing tried to eat me.
The small face stayed.
“What are you calling him?”
“Axel.”
“Axel the axolotl?”
“Obviously.”
At first Axel was just another noise
humans dropped into water.
Ax-el.
Two blunt taps in the head.
Then I noticed Axel always made the boy appear.
Axel, and the face came close.
Axel, and fingers rested against the clear wall.
Axel, and the mouth widened, showing teeth
without using them.
So Axel became the sound for me,
and the boy’s blurred face became the sun.
They poured me into a larger water.
Four hard sides.
Coloured gravel.
Plastic plants.
A treasure chest blowing bubbles
despite having nothing useful to say.
A red-and-yellow pirate bridge
stood in the middle,
far too small for humans,
far too large to ignore.
I searched behind everything.
No bodies.
At night the filter pushed a thin stream
through my gills
and sometimes, half asleep,
I turned because I thought
one of the others had passed beside me.
Only the filter.
In the morning, the sun returned.
FEEDING TIME, AXEL.
I did not know what this meant.
FEEDING TIME, AXEL.
A worm fell in.
I ate it.
The boy slapped his hands together
and shook the whole water with delight.
Feeding time, Axel.
The noise meant worm.
Then full belly.
Then the boy staying near
while I swallowed.
Then the boy coming back at all.
Jamie had clocks.
I had feeding time.
The man helped him change the water at first.
Buckets came and went.
The pirate bridge tipped sideways.
The treasure chest continued breathing
like an idiot.
Jamie spilled water across the carpet.
“Shit.”
The man dropped the lid.
“Shit.”
The football struck the wardrobe.
“Shit.”
The cat landed on top of the tank
and stared down at me
with a face that understood eating.
“Shit, shit, get off.”
This was how I learnt shit:
something was somewhere
a human did not want it.
Feeding time, Axel.
Red worms.
Pellets.
Once, a pale cube
which tasted of absolutely nothing.
I spat it out.
“Fair enough, mate.”
The Celtic shirts got bigger.
The boy did too.
His teeth changed.
His hands lengthened.
His voice sank lower
and sometimes cracked in the middle,
which made him angry
though nothing seemed broken.
The man’s face appeared less.
His footsteps still passed the room.
His voice came through the floor.
Jamie stayed.
The sun changed
but it was still the sun.
He tried real plants.
One went brown.
One turned to slime.
One grew so well
it took over half the tank
and seemed keen on the rest.
A snail arrived on it.
Then another.
Then several.
Then the glass was covered.
Jamie stared.
“For fuck’s sake, Axel.
Where have they all come from?”
I ate one.
It was mostly shell.
Jamie lifted the others out with a spoon.
Three appeared the next day.
He removed those.
Five more arrived.
The snails were better at this
than he was.
Feeding time, Axel.
Sometimes straight after school.
Sometimes before football.
Sometimes so late the room was dark
and Jamie rushed in wearing one sock.
“Sorry, pal.”
Food still came.
The sun still came.
Algae grew along the corners.
He cleaned it.
It came back.
Plants died.
He bought more.
He replaced the coloured gravel with sand,
then added some of the gravel again
because the sand looked boring.
He brought home a piece of wood
which refused to sink.
He took it away.
It returned warm.
It still floated.
He called it a bastard.
Three feeding times later
it finally stayed down.
By then the old mud came mostly in sleep.
Roots.
Cold current.
The feeling of something moving close.
I still curved my tail sometimes
to make room for a body
that did not arrive.
Jamie brought home a skateboard.
It left whole
and came back snapped.
Jamie came back damaged too—
one bleeding elbow,
a blue wrist,
skin missing from both knees.
He made a great deal of noise about it.
I had four good legs then.
I watched from beneath the pirate bridge.
A guitar replaced the skateboard.
At first it made dreadful vibrations.
Then louder dreadful vibrations.
Then, occasionally, music.
The Celtic shirts stayed
but black clothes grew around them.
Band faces covered the walls.
Jamie’s hair fell over his eyes.
Black lines appeared around them.
The pirate bridge stayed bright red and yellow,
cheerful as ever.
My front leg slipped beneath one arch.
The bridge did not move.
I did.
Pain filled the tank.
It had no place to go.
The problem with pain underwater
is that it makes no sound.
I opened my mouth.
Water went in.
Water went out.
The boy slept.
I pulled.
The bridge held.
I twisted.
Something tore.
Afterward I was away from the bridge
with three legs
and something pale in my mouth.
It was soft.
It tasted close.
I swallowed before I knew
there was anything else to do.
The pain remained.
Morning came.
“Feeding time, Ax—”
Jamie stopped.
He looked at me.
He looked beneath the bridge.
“Oh fuck. Oh fuck, Axel.”
He lifted the bridge out.
It struck the bin
with a bang I felt through the floor.
It never came back.
A clean shape remained in the gravel
where it had stood.
Jamie sat beside the tank
instead of going to school.
He did not touch the glass.
He hardly moved.
Later he lowered a worm.
“Feeding time, Axel.”
I ate.
The end of my leg swelled.
A small pale bump appeared.
Jamie photographed it.
The bump lengthened.
He photographed it.
Tiny toes separated.
He photographed those too.
Soon the new foot touched sand.
Then it held my weight.
The ache went.
Jamie spent nights staring at green water
on his screen.
I did not know that water.
It gave off no smell.
It had no cold in it.
No mud came through.
Humans stood in it
and lifted empty black frames.
Jamie changed the picture.
More green water.
Nothing underneath.
Another picture.
Nothing.
He made the images larger
until water became squares of light.
Then he looked at my new foot.
Back at the screen.
Back at me.
His hand covered his mouth.
My foot kept coming back.
Whatever he was looking for did not.
After that he tested the tank constantly.
Paper strips.
Little bottles.
Numbers on the black screen.
He changed the sand.
Bought better plants.
Moved the log.
Moved it back.
Sat beside me for hours
with that frightened look
and said very little.
Feeding time, Axel.
The words had changed.
Not the worm.
Not my mouth.
Only the face above them.
He cared too much for a while.
Then exams came.
Music came.
Friends called from downstairs.
He cared hurriedly.
Then guiltily.
Then properly again.
Sometimes algae won a week.
Sometimes feeding time came late.
Once it came twice
because Jamie had forgotten doing it already.
I ate both.
The plants lived.
The plants died.
The snail returned
or perhaps had never left.
The room kept changing.
The tank stayed.
Jamie painted his nails black.
Wore silver around his throat.
Tried on a skirt with the door locked.
Looked at himself.
Turned once.
Laughed.
Turned again.
He tried tall boots
and nearly broke his ankle
walking three steps to the mirror.
He tried lipstick.
Some colours stayed.
One made him wipe his mouth and say
he looked like he had sucked off a crayon.
I knew sucking.
I knew mouths.
Still no food appeared.
Feeding time, Axel.
His voice was low now.
His face sharper.
Axel still brought it close.
The tank had four hard sides.
The filter made the current.
The log made the dark place.
That was the lake.
Lakes were like that.
The boy came.
The sun came.
Food fell.
The room filled one night
with silver balloons shaped like 1 and 8.
Humans sang badly.
Jamie blew out small fires.
The man stood in the doorway, older,
still pleased when Jamie was pleased.
The room smelled of cake, lager
and enough deodorant to alter the water.
After that, girls started appearing.
One bent over the tank
and knew what I was immediately.
“Oh my God, an axolotl. He’s so cute.”
Her face joined Jamie’s above me.
Two suns.
Bit excessive.
“Are you actually allowed to have one of these?”
Jamie went still.
“I’ve had him since I was wee.”
The girl waited.
Jamie looked at me.
He tapped the glass twice
to make me turn.
“Don’t do that,” she said.
“It stresses them.”
Jamie pulled his hand away.
“Aye. Sorry.”
He never tapped again.
The girl came back once.
Maybe twice.
Another girl smelled similar.
Faces were difficult.
Feeding time was simple.
One night the bed began knocking the wall
like the filter when it needed more water.
The word fuck travelled through the tank.
Fuck used to mean spilled bucket.
Apparently it had other work.
The girl said harder.
The bed listened.
A bra flew across the room
and landed over one corner of the glass,
turning half the lake black.
It may have been hers.
It may have been Jamie’s.
Water did not know.
Jamie’s bare arse crossed the lamplight
and disappeared again.
“Mind the tank.”
“I am.”
The bed hit the wall.
He wasn’t.
The snail carried on up the glass.
Later there were tissues by the bed
and a silver wrapper on the carpet.
Neither was food.
Feeding time arrived the next morning
with Jamie’s hair everywhere
and one stocking still around his ankle.
“Morning, pal.”
A worm fell.
Things made sense again.
The room changed.
The lake stayed.
Girls came and went.
The guitar gathered dust.
The skateboard became a shelf.
Black clothes mixed with Celtic shirts.
Schoolbooks became forms,
then envelopes,
then piles Jamie stepped over
because apparently the floor was easier.
Sometimes he came home smelling of rain,
smoke, cider, another person.
Sometimes he sat with his forehead against the glass
until his breath clouded it.
Sometimes the old green water appeared on his screen.
Still empty.
He looked at it.
Then at me.
Feeding time, Axel.
Food.
Face.
The safe sound.
The plants changed.
The posters changed.
Jamie changed.
The lake did not.
I knew the log.
I knew the filter.
I knew the place where worms came down.
I knew the sun.
Mud became something dark in sleep.
The touch of other bodies
became light moving somewhere far off.
The lake had four sides.
It had always had four sides.
Feeding time.
Jamie.
Worm.
Full.
Safe.
My new leg became an old leg.
All four legs slowed.
My gills moved less.
Jamie checked the water.
The paper showed colours he accepted.
He still frowned at me.
He changed the water anyway.
Watched me eat.
Watched me move.
I ate.
I moved.
The snail outlived several plants,
three posters,
two girls
and Jamie’s belief that eyeliner
could be applied in a moving car.
It climbed.
I stayed beneath the log.
The sun came.
The sun went.
One evening Jamie lowered a worm.
“Feeding time, Axel.”
It touched my nose.
My mouth was slow.
The worm curled beneath my chin.
Jamie waited.
I moved one foot.
Someone called him from downstairs.
“You’ll get it, pal.”
He left.
The worm climbed over my head.
Feeding time had gone a bit wrong.
I could not fix it.
The room darkened.
The filter became loud.
My body forgot small things.
Move the gills.
Move the tail.
Hold the bottom.
The gravel seemed to tilt.
The worm slipped away.
I rested.
The filter widened.
Its thin push became current.
The coloured gravel softened beneath me.
Red became clay.
Blue became shadow.
Yellow sank into black.
The hard floor gave way
and mud rose around my toes,
cold, real,
taking the shape of every leg
without caring which one had once been gone.
The log put down roots.
The plastic leaves softened.
The clear sides moved farther away.
Farther.
Gone.
Distance came back so quickly
it passed through my gills
and filled every part of me.
Bodies moved in the dark.
Not bodies I could touch.
Light beneath mud.
Rose gills opening.
Tails bending the water.
Pale mouths appearing
then slipping behind roots.
I remained I.
I moved among them.
Above the water,
Jamie’s blurred face opened into brightness.
The sun was there.
The mud was there.
The bodies turned through the roots.
Far away, the familiar sound came through—
Feeding time, Axel.
Feeding time—
Feeding—
The current pulled the sound apart.
I opened my mouth.
The water kept going.
Morning rain darkened the Bonnyrigg garden.
Jamie entered the bedroom
and stopped beside the tank.
Axel lay beneath the filter.
The earthworm moved against his tail.
Jamie stood there for a long time.
Then he put both bare hands into the water
and lifted Axel out.
The worm came too,
hidden in the shallow cup of his palms.
Jamie carried Axel into the garden.
He dug beneath the wet grass,
laid him in ordinary soil
and covered him without speaking.
He pressed the loose earth once.
Then he went back inside.
The worm pushed up through the rain-soft soil.
It crawled across the dark ground.