He places the box next to me and kneels before me. He stares deep into my eyes. The white film of his gaze unnerves me.

“Are you prepared to trust me?” he asks.

I stare into his milky eyes, his wrinkled face. I weigh out my days of pain, my weeks of agony, my years of sadness, my life of walking the earth in this body.

“ Yes.”

“Then let us begin.”

He opens the box slowly. Inside, there is water which refracts the candlelight.

“What is the water for?”

“Ah, my dear, it is not only water.”

He opens the lid wider. More light creeps into the box, and I can see bodies slithering beneath the water, slick, scaled. Suddenly, a small face comes into view beneath the surface: two eyes, strange nose, a mouth.

“Eels,” he says. “For you.”

Another face appears in the water. The two eels keep moving, curving around each other.

“Why eels?”

“They will use their current to help you.”

“Current?”

“Yes, their shocks will help you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Where is your faith?”

“I don’t believe in anything.”

“You must believe in something on this earth.”

“ I don’t.”

“Please, show me your knot. Let me.”

I slide off my dress. There is nothing sexual to it — he does not stare at me and I do not look at him. In the flickering candlelight, my body is a deeper puzzle: the shadows make my curved abdomen stranger, more menacing, the neck of a dark swan curled in on itself.

“Now please, if you will, lie down.”

I do as I’m told, the cave dirt pressing against my skin.

He slides on a pair of thick gray gloves and opens the box. He moves quickly and with purpose, seizing one eel and raising it out of the water. The eel writhes in the air between us, wet body glinting.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

I nod and he moves toward me without hesitation. Then the eel is laid over my knot, curling into its crevices.

For a moment, the eel is still, which lets my heart rest for a beat. For a moment a new future flashes into mind: the eel and I living together in harmony, its black body attached to mine, a new knot.

Then shock roars through my body where it touches my skin, the black slime of the eel hot with electricity, the light of it tearing through me, making me bright white, writhing, the pain bigger than any I’ve ever felt.

When I come to, the man stands over me, gloveless, the eel peeled from my body. There is an extra step in my heartbeat. I run a hand over my knot, which is sore to the touch.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

“The same.”

“Well, one more time then,” he says before I go under, the dark cave closing its mouth around me.