A Fish Cycle

Nefertiti and Akhenaten were horsing around in the water. Nefertiti would nip Akhenaten on the side and run for her life. Akhenaten would then go after her, chasing her through the weeds and the green-glass stones, trying in the melee to lose her so that finding her would be fun.

Nefertiti was much more beautiful than her famous bust. In fact she was gold and silver, like the earth-bound sun, the silver grinning from behind the gold. Just like that. In glorious confusion.

Nefertiti and Akhenaten hadn't yet started their religion. Or probably had. In another parallel universe. But even in the water, in the fishbowl, they showed signs of a religious passion. A passion for the Sun.

They would wake up early and look out through the water and the bowl and the window, at the sun. Like hungry pilgrims. Two pairs of fisheyes waiting for the sun to show up and warm their water and their lives.

I could see Nefertiti was dying to be reborn. Reborn as the Queen of Egypt. Akhenaten let out laughter bubbles, perhaps feeling funny at the thought of changing shape and destiny. Becoming pharoah, a king in a world created by aliens who later became gods, then kings and then ordinary men. Then finally fish.

Nefertiti and Akhenaten had just been told about their new life. Nefertiti was visibly pleased. Smiling tiny smile bubbles under water. When she couldn't wait no longer, she started going round and round the bowl, trying to gather momentum and strength.

The next morning Akhenaten was found floating on the top of the bowl. Very cold and very dead. Nefertiti was still going round and round, trying furiously to hasten her entry into the other world. Another time.

Around noon Nefertiti too was up, floating on the water as only dead fishes can. By afternoon, both Nefertiti and Akhenaten had begun to give off a foul odour.

They had clearly had enough of the fishbowl.

So with my index finger and thumb I fished out Nefertiti and Akhenaten from the bowl and laid them to rest in a shallow grave under a female papaya tree. And through the roots of the female papaya tree both Nefertiti and Akhenaten entered the underworld, where after a brief interregnum, their souls were freed. In Egypt. As King and Queen. As children of a new Sun god.
Meanwhile, their bodies became papayas, the inside of which was gold and silver, the exact colour of my goldfish whose lives changed the moment I called them Nefertiti and Akhenaten.