Late at night, Icarusfish flails through liquid space toward the blurry yellow sun cemented in the sky blue ahead. His eyes sting and his lungs are starting to burn. Can Icarusfish get there before he runs out of air? He no longer recalls why, exactly, he wants to get there. Was it to prove that he wouldn’t melt?

To see if he would?

But this body is not built for underwater travel. Its spastic, gangly unstreamlined arms and legs hinder forward progress. What he needs is a tail.

A pale dolphin torpedoes into the water, leaving a trail of shimmering mercury bubbles. The dolphin becomes a squid with long golden tentacles. The tentacles become billowing yellow hair. The dolphin/squid becomes a mermaid with pink nipples and dark pubic hair.

Icarusfish kicks to the surface and gasps for breath. In his lungs, a zillion tiny red roses open to accept the fresh chlorine-scented night air. Icarusfish’s vision is a wavy rainbow kaleidoscope blur.

Cousin Itt from The Addams Family surfaces nearby. Golden hair clings to his head, covering his face. Cousin Itt parts the hair and becomes Mermaid Tinsley. Tears drip down her face and off her chin.

“Your hairline is crying,” Icarusfish tells her.

Treading water requires effort, coordination, and concentration. The jointed appendages attached to Icarusfish’s body fail to work in the specific disjointed unison necessary to keep his head above water. Icarusfish feels his chin, then lips, start to slide under.

“Here.” Tinsley pushes a pink raft to him. Lucas holds on while she tows him to the side of the pool, where he grabs the fat chrome ladder and climbs out. Tinsley follows. From the ends of her hair, sparkling streams run down her sides and back. The ridge of vertebrae along her spine is reptilian. Will she evolve into a bird? Will her skinny, jointed appendages grow feathers? Will she become a seagull tossing I Ching coins with an orange claw?

Tinsley wraps herself in a big white towel and becomes Tinsley Polar Bear on a chaise lounge. Lucas stands wet and naked before her. Tiny droplets cling to the dark hairs around his nipples. Farther down in a dark shrub of pubic hair, his shriveled penis is hardly visible. “Pathetic penis,” Lucas complains, and he starts to shiver.

“You’re cold.” Tinsley hands me a thick square of white terry cloth that unfolds into a towel. The post-swim chill has clipped my fins and returned me to the mortal coil (though hopefully not for long). I pull the towel around my shoulders and settle onto the lounge next to hers.