Mira is going to the sea

She was turning into a fish, she said. This had been going on for days. Couldn’t he see? Couldn’t he smell it on her? She smelled of the sea. She found two fish scales under her pillow! Mira jiggled her bracelets above his head. Her voice alone would not get his attention. Tomo raised his newspaper, pulled his head in – a tortoise retreating into its shell. “Just look at them,” Mira said, slapping two fish scales on the paragraph that he was reading. Wet circles started to engulf the words together with his peaceful morning. Tomo sighed and focused on the scales. They were peculiar – unreasonably large. Not that he knew much about fish, not before it ended on his plate, scaleless. Tomo’s mind wandered back to the last time it happened – in early March, on his birthday. To celebrate, they drove down to the village restaurant. The old stone wall clung to the cliff above the sea. It used to be a fortress in its days of glory. Now, draped in nets, lifebuoys and anchors, the fortress fed…