A Tale of the Lowerunders

His kind had always fascinated the Otherworlders. Their sages, their systems. What was it; that made the body of his kinfolk burst into pieces when they came up?

Up, up; into the Otherworld?

His great-grandmother was once taken up there. Drawn up from dark, unseen depths. The Otherworlders, excited at seeing the sightless creature with the jagged teeth; were shocked to their marrow when she immediately exploded.

Otherworlder witchdoctors tried to explain it away. They said it was ambient pressure, yada yada yada. He had never heard about it. But even if he had, he couldn’t have understood it.

But in Lowerunder where he lived, they spoke in hushed tones about a phenomenon alien to them, and to all who lived in their region. He found the entire thing most curious. Why was it alien to them?

His hoity-toity neighbours carried a little tiny lamp on their heads. Hanging over their heads. They told him about it, for he could not see it. Bah! They weren’t much better off either, despite being awfully snotty about the tiny little thing on their head.

And about that, too! He felt that even if the fabled thing called “lumen” were real; it was never meant for just for one’s own head alone. But for the world around one, and for one’s neighbours too.

He’d heard stories of other folk similar to his own kind. They were called Upperdwellers, said to live much closer to the Otherworldly-up-up-up. The Upperdwellers were folk with bright shiny eyes, who lived and danced near the surface. It was also rumoured that amongst them were some called Flyingothers, who had translucent silvery wings and could actually fly several feet into the air. Imagine that!

Lowerunders scoffed at the stories of Flyingothers, scoffed at the stories of lumen and the Up-up-up. They called them fables and old wives’ tales; declaring there no such things. Why, the very idea! They, the Lowerunders; were content to live right where they were.

But there were outliers. There are always outliers who search for truth, and are never satisfied with the status quo. He kept asking questions.

And his life changed, on the day a feisty little Upperdweller wandered into the midlands where he also had gone; despite several warnings from his Mama. He’d gone up there, fighting the pain from within his body, but determined to know the truth.

********************

She’d glided to the edge of the midlands, equally curious about the depths she had been warned not to venture into.

She it was, who tried hard to describe to him the splendid orange-and-blue fabric of the Mandarin Dragonet. The magenta and yellow skin of the Bicolour Dottyback. And the vibrant, extravagant flamenco skirts of the Halfmoon Betta. But he’d grown increasingly frustrated with each description she painted, as his mind abysmally failed to picture the colours.

So, he went back home and badgered his grandfather, until he told him the story of their kinfolk.

Their people, when they were but a single school; had fled in terror from a huge school of one of the Great Mafias.

“Let us run to the depths, that we may not be eaten!”

So, they went deep. Deeper still; into the lower, dark depths. And settled there. Permanently.

The darkness was oppressively dense. But each time they saw the overhead shadows of the Great Mafias, they dived even lower. They eventually got so deep into the darkness, that they stopped needing eyes.

And over time, the children born to them simply did not have eyes.

He heard what his grandpa said.

And plenty; which he didn’t say.

It was true that the Great Mafias and their ilk never bothered them down there in Lowerunder.

But sadly, it was also true that his kind had paid an extremely, unimaginably-high price for it.

For it is a cardinal rule in the universe

that in every realm, and in every world,

Giving in wholly to fear and mere self-preservation;

will always cause you to lose your sight.

**********************

She visited again, as promised. They met by the big shrub in the midlands. Within the few minutes when he could tolerate the pressure pain, she told him about how she had gone to the Wise One to seek help for him.

He was stunned.

“There is a Wise One?”

“Of course there is,” she said, matter-of-factly. “The light from his body is what powers the whole world.”

She tried to describe the Wise One. But adjectives for what he had never seen; were completely lost on him.

There was only one thing to do. He could not go into the Up-up-up, because his body simply couldn’t stand it. However, the Wise One had decided to beam his light gently through the depths of the dark waters. Metre by metre. Little by little. To bring lumen to him, and to the Lowerunders.

It began the next day. The Wise One beamed lumen into the darkness of the water, past the midlands.

He sensed it, swam towards it. A few feet beneath the midlands, he began to feel a distinct warmth on his body. His membranes tingled. There was something in the inner recesses of his DNA which leaped and began to dance. He grinned, gurgled, flipped, and nearly whacked himself out cold with his tail. All in his excitement!

“Goodness me! Is this what they call “lumen?” Oh, it is so, SO good!”

After a while, he mumbled to himself,

“It does feel vaguely familiar. Like some old, ancient memory...but one just out reach of my memory! It feels like something I SHOULD know, but didn’t; till now.”

He then fell quiet, and simply gave himself up to the joy and beauty of it.

The next day, and every day after that, the light penetrated even deeper through the dark depths, to where he was. Just like the Wise One had promised.

A few of his friends and neighbours, now curious; joined him. But the other Lowerunders wouldn’t hear of it. They fled from the lumen and burrowed deeper into the darkness.

“Our body membranes just can’t process it,” they said. “We don’t understand it!”

He heard what they said.

But he also heard what they did not say. Change feels frightening, comfort feels safe.

But now he knew that comfort could sometimes be a flat-out thief, so he tried to encourage them.

“You must leave that zone,” he urged. “There is now light, just right above us. And it doesn’t hurt at all. I promise you, it is worth it!”

But they wouldn’t go with him.

“We don’t understand this thing you call light! We are fine being blind. Our mother is blind. Father; blind. Our great-grandmother was blind! We and our children are blind. It’s all we’ve known, and it’s all we will ever know. It is sufficient for us! We stay right here.”

Well now. What does one say to that?

As for him, after a short while he began to feel a persistent itch in the smooth area above his gills. He was initially terrified.

But his friend the Upperdweller, laughed.

“It’s your eyes,” she said. “Now that you’re experiencing light every day, your eyes are beginning to form again. That part of your DNA has been reactivated.”

************************

The Wise One never did shine his light all the way down to the very bottom of the depths. Perhaps, it was out of love for the creatures who refused to come up into the places where He had extended lumen.

Because He wanted to leave the option of choice. They always had to choose. Those who wanted, simply swam up just a bit higher.

Because, in the former habitations of the darkness below the midlands; there now was light.

He and his friends never went back down, becoming the pioneers of those who chose to seek a phenomenon which had seemed like a fable, but was real.

And in a short while, several schools of little ones were born to those brave fish.

Born; with fully formed, shiny bright eyes.