Skeleton
It was one of those fancy restaurants where they pushed your chair in for you, brought the whole fish to the table.
We all had to watch while the waiter performed his theatrical surgery, removing the head with a twist, then a stylish flaying until, with a flourish, he held aloft the masterpiece of its skeleton and presented it for us to see. Did somebody applaud?
It was supposed to be a celebration, but all I could think about was that beautiful swell and narrowing I had seen, captured by the filigree of its own bones, pins and needles rippling like a dream catcher above silver knives.
My future in-laws ate the pearled flaked flesh, fat forkfuls swimming into their mouths, gleaming body parts falling into fat chapters where the beast’s bones had been written. I remember frothed butter congealing into scummy patches on the platter’s silver lake, lemon wedges cut into jagged rocks.
I wasn’t used to the feeling of my engagement ring on my finger, the diamond rising jagged like dead coral from its claws. Concentrating on smiling, I drank too much, imagined a great wave of water with a shoal of hungry fish surging through the high-ceilinged room, cleaning muscle and sinew from our faces, leaving our shattered fragments under the chandeliers.
The fish’s platinum eye stared at me all evening, its mouth open and silent. I sat with the white dress of the table cloth and the heavy napkin tangled round my waist and legs.
A spineless creature with something fine and jagged caught in her throat.
Olga Dermott has published two pamphlets apple, fallen, and A sky full of strange specimens. Her debut full collection Frieze will be published by Nine Arches Press later this year. Originally from Northern Ireland, she lives in Warwickshire. @olgadermott