The Dark Issue 52 by Gillian Daniels

Author:Gillian Daniels [The Dark Magazine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dark fantasy, fantasy, horror, magazine
Publisher: Prime Books
Published: 2019-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

Ruoxi Chen is an editor and writer in New York City. Her work appears in or is forthcoming from Electric Literature and The Dark. You can find her at ruoxichen.com and on Twitter @jruoxichen.

All My Relations

by Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada

Fish are bloody and fleshy and briny. The belly meat is fatty, the guts are sharp and acrid. But they barely sate my hunger. Only the flesh of your skin-sack kin does that.

It’s been so long.

I look at the stringer of fish: some weke nono, an uku, a scattering of kole. The weke’s vibrant stripes contrast with the uku’s darker colour. Out in the water, I said the ritual words. Then I feasted. Even a predator recognises those above him. I devoured two bright green uhu before I came in, making short work of their thick scales. The edge of my hunger is dulled, but still cutting. Gnawing. Whispering. Insisting.

I walk across the grass, stringer and spear in one hand, the rest of my gear tucked under my arm or balanced across my chest. I stash the rest of the fish in the cooler in the back of my truck for later, and head towards the hose.

A young boy splashes his slippers idly in the puddle on the asphalt by the spigot. This is the beach I dive at most and I see him around with his dad and some other folks. I’ve even traded fish with the father a few times.

The boy’s wearing a stained and tattered pair of red surf shorts. Someone, maybe his mom, has added elastic to the waistband to make it fit his skinny brown frame better. As I approach, he turns and stares at me unashamedly, as children do.

My breathing quickens and my muscles tense. I force myself to relax. His stare is not a challenge. I flick my eyes over him. He’s a little runt, hair turned ‘ehu from the sun. He might be twelve. Maybe he’s eight. I don’t know his age, but that’s more because I can’t be bothered to pay attention to the developmental stages of your whelps rather than some ageless quality about him.

“Uncle, my dad says that you should never dive alone.”

And now he’s talking to me. “I’m not your uncle, boy,” I grumble, brushing past him to get to the hose. Uncle. As if we could be related.

I am a glorious kupua, a niuhi even. A ravening killing machine, sending your ape-descended ancestors into the never-ending night. Leaving their entrails to twist in the salty currents of the sea. I am the tax your people pay for living by the shores of the great sea Moananuiākea.

“My dad said you can get shallow water blackout if you hold your breath too long!”

“I’ll be careful next time,” I snort, not mentioning that I can breathe underwater. That the feel of water rushing across my gills as I chase down prey is one of my greatest pleasures in life. That if this was two hundred years ago, I would already know what his liver tastes like.

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