The Puffer fish.
The sea was unusually still that morning.
Not calm, no, never calm, but watching.
Sunlight slipped through the surface in long, trembling spears, illuminating drifting particles like dust in some ancient cathedral. And there, wobbling gently in the quiet water, was Percival.
Percival the pufferfish.
Rounder than usual. Slightly offended by existence. And currently contemplating a piece of seaweed that had, in his opinion, “looked at him funny.”
He puffed a little, just enough to establish dominance.
The seaweed did not respond.
“Typical,” Percival muttered to himself, deflating with a soft, squeaky sigh.
That’s when the shadow arrived.
Long. Slow. Wrong.
Percival squinted upward.
A shape broke the surface, a figure descending, trailing bubbles like a leaking thought. Arms, legs… fins? No, not fins. Something clumsy. Something… human.
The diver.
But Percival didn’t know that.
What he did know was this:
Something large was coming toward him.
And it had a face like a glassy, staring moon.
The diver’s mask.
From above, the diver had already spotted Percival.
“Well, would you look at that,” he thought, bubbles escaping in quiet bursts. “A little floaty toy. Must’ve fallen off a boat.”
Percival, drifting in the light, did look suspiciously toy, like, perfectly round, faintly smiling, gently bobbing.
Irresistible.
The diver reached out.
Percival noticed the hand immediately.
It was enormous.
It approached with the slow, confident stupidity of something that had never been bitten before.
Percival puffed.
A warning puff.
Then a slightly larger warning puff.
The hand kept coming.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Percival muttered, inflating further. “Is this thing blind? I am clearly escalating.”
The diver’s gloved fingers gently booped him.
There are moments in life when reality fractures.
This was one of them.
Percival froze mid-puff.
The diver tilted his head behind the mask.
“Huh,” he thought. “Squeaky.”
He poked again.
Percival made a small, involuntary noise.
It was not dignified.
What followed can only be described as a complete and total breakdown of communication between species.
The diver, now convinced he had found the ocean’s most delightful stress ball, gently squeezed Percival.
Percival, now convinced he had been abducted by an idiot, inflated to maximum capacity.
He became, quite suddenly, immense.
A perfect, spiky balloon of outrage.
The diver yelped, well, as much as one can yelp underwater, and recoiled, bubbles exploding upward in alarm.
Percival hovered there, enormous and furious.
“I am NOT a toy,” he declared to no one in particular.
The diver stared.
The mask’s wide, unblinking eyes reflected Percival’s swollen, judgmental face back at him.
For a long moment, neither moved.
Just two creatures, suspended in the water, both reconsidering their life choices.
Then Percival noticed something.
The mask.
That strange, glassy dome.
It reflected him perfectly… but distorted. Rounder. Shinier. Slightly ridiculous.
He drifted closer, still puffed.
The diver, to his credit, did not move.
Percival examined his reflection.
Turned slightly.
Admired the symmetry.
“Hm,” he said.
He deflated just a little… then puffed again.
A test.
The reflection followed.
Fascinating.
The diver, meanwhile, had reached a profound conclusion:
“Not a toy.”
He slowly raised his hands in surrender.
Percival nodded.
“Correct.”
But curiosity is a dangerous current.
Percival drifted closer to the mask.
Too close.
His nose pressed gently against the glass.
The diver went cross, eyed trying to look at him.
Percival puffed slightly in surprise.
The diver startled.
Their faces, one behind glass, one full of spikes, remained inches apart.
Then Percival did something no one expected.
He booped back.
A tiny, deliberate tap against the mask.
The diver laughed, silent, shaking laughter, bubbles dancing upward.
Percival blinked.
“Well… that was acceptable,” he admitted.
They stayed like that for a moment longer.
Two absurd beings in a vast, ancient ocean.
One thinking, “What a strange little creature.”
The other thinking, “What a strange, large idiot.”
Eventually, the diver gave a small wave and began to rise, vanishing back toward the bright, broken ceiling of the sea.
Percival watched him go.
Then turned back to the seaweed.
The same piece.
Still there.
Still suspicious.
Percival puffed slightly.
“Let’s be clear,” he said. “I am not a toy.”
The seaweed, as always, said nothing.
Which Percival took as agreement.
Above, the diver would later tell everyone about the “living balloon with opinions.”
Below, Percival would forever remain wary of floating hands and glassy faces.
And the sea…
The sea kept watching.
As it always does.
