Alone

Nearly ever since I can remember, Ale has always been there. 

Older, wiser, smarter, bigger, more popular. Better. Ale may not have been my brother but I doubt I could have hated him any more if he were. 

But he’s gone. I’m not sure whether I’m more glad that I’m no longer stuck in his shadow or sorry that the flash of anger warming me has gone with him. It’s a cold dark world and now I’m alone in it. 

The time in my life before I came into Ale’s world seems like a distant dream. There were warm ocean currents and soft teals, aquamarines, blues. Seaweeds were gentle and caressing in the kind pulse of the sea. 

I can recall with more clarity the moment I arrived at the river. It was cooler, colder. More stimulating and somehow, despite the difference, like coming home. A place I had never been to before, yet still it was home. That life I loved. Independent and free. But it was so short -  capture came from nowhere  - I struggled in vain against woven weeds that tightened and dug into me as I flailed and flung myself about. There was no escape and I was borne out of the water, then thrust into a small dark waterspot, with hardly room to twist my tail. I could feel movement for a time and then suddenly once more a raising, bright light, and then a drop into semi-darkness. 

When I came to myself, in a sort of dark tube, I found I was not alone.  Far bigger, far older, and far more hideous than I’d ever imagined anyone could be, he seemed to me a grotesque mockery of life. Ale dominated everything I could see and he made it promptly and abundantly clear that he would not be troubling himself to make room for me. I was very definitely number two when it came to space, food and everything else. I was small, but Ale managed to make me feel even smaller. He’d constantly trick me, outsmart me, and literally keep me down. At first I thought maybe there really wasn’t enough for both of us, I made excuses about why I always came off worst and barely got a scrap. It was some time before I wised up and realized he didn’t need to treat me that way, he did it because he enjoyed it.

The lid of our watery world (called a well, according to Ale) would lift from time to time and the light would shine - but Ale would hog it all. He’d coil around the top, spinning and twisting to calls of ‘Ale, Ale’ as familiar faces brought new faces to see him. I was stuck down in whatever fading rays weren’t blocked out by Ale’s fat bloated body. They never called my name for a chance in the sun. In fact, I don’t even think they know it. 

Years went by. And I grew, somehow, despite the meager pickings after Ale had his fill.  Though he was still the biggest and the oldest, the gap between us had narrowed. It felt like our world had too, as I attained my full stature.  I don’t know exactly how long I put up with it, nor how I managed to keep going as long as I did. Finally, after the lid closed on yet another Ale-fest where he got all the light, food, and attention, I’d had enough. We didn’t talk much as a rule, but this seemed like a time to thresh it out. 

‘Why should you get it all? Don’t you think I should get to go up to the light every once in a while?’ 

He looked at me with those unnaturally huge eyes of his, and looked away. As if I wasn’t even worth a reply.  

Incensed, swinging my tail to show I meant business, I said again ‘What makes you think you’re the only one of any importance here??’ Again he dismissed me with a glance. Right, I thought. I’m going to show him he may be the oldest and the first inhabitant here but that doesn’t mean I’ve no rights. Maybe if I give him a good thrashing we can even things up.

I wound up and lunged for him.  The shock stunned me - there was hardly an impact as he practically disintegrated around me.  There was nothing to thrash and suddenly there was no Ale, just debris floating through the water. I couldn’t believe it.  It seemed like an impossible trick. He was hiding, he would strike from somewhere when I least expected…. 

It took finding food and - for the first time since my arrival in the well - eating it uncontested to convince me that he was really gone. It did take a while to stop the habit of looking behind me when I found something to eat.  

There was a long time of incredible guilt and surprising sadness. Ale may have been … I don’t even have the words for what he was, but I didn’t mean to kill him. And I couldn’t even begin to put it behind me when I was bumping into his flotsam regularly. Once I came face to face with his, horribly grim and accusative. Then one day the lid lifted, voices called for him, becoming lower-toned and slow as they realized the pieces were all that was left. They scooped up his remains and closed the lid again, not a word to me, never even called me.  I started to worry. What was going to happen? Ale was clearly the favourite, I was barely a nonentity in their eyes.  Was there some sort of retribution coming my way? 

Then, suddenly like a warm current from long ago, came a certain knowledge, and with it peace. Ale was ready to go. He was much older and tired and despite getting the best of everything on offer in this well, it just wasn’t enough to keep him interested in life. Lording it over me probably kept him going for longer than he would have alone, making my life miserable adding zest to his. But eventually even that lost its thrill.  So that fatal day, he goaded me into that enraged lunge, knowingly making me the instrument of his demise. He probably even thought, in his evil way, with pleasure of the bad feelings I might have or the repercussions that might come for me.  One last spark of joy at the end for him, thinking of how even after his death he would be tyrannizing over me.

But he’s gone now and I can stretch out without fear. This place may not be what I would dream of calling home - the river is that for me - but I’m sure ready to be number one in it and have everything there is here. I’m a lot younger than Ale, that’s for sure. I’ve got time on my side - and maybe I’ll even figure out a way to get out of here some day and back to free water. Now I’m alone, at last, I can start to think!