The Challenging Depths Of Man
I am, you may say, a “fish pervert”.
As a scuba diver I am not unique in this regard. In fact, it is a poorly-kept secret that the vast majority of scuba divers are fish perverts. I mean, what other possible reason could we have for risking the kinds of death most men only dream of in the kind of steaming nightmares that come when the nights are humid and inescapable? What do you think we occupy our minds with in the diving bell eternities while we keep the bends at arm’s length if not the undulating, shivering forms of fins and flippers?
No, we are humble fish fanciers and we do not care for, nor about, your judgement. You should not be surprised that we shirk society’s expectations when we look death in its suboceanic rod-rich retinas every day of our damned lives. Within the first week of training a fellow diver, a fine boy from my own hometown by the name of Felix Trunkopolis, was crushed by a dropped anchor which had been customised to look like a gigantic pair of buttocks in tight-fitting lycra. Such tragedies are commonplace. His diving partner, Chudwick, having not warned him of the obvious danger (distracted as he was by a particularly alluring Pterois Lunulata), inherited the entirety of Felix’s considerable debt and the burden of the nine monstrous Trunkopolis children. Chudwick accepted this burden magnanimously. Any of us would have accepted it likewise, because Diving Law states that it must be so.
We all know of the danger, and of the cost of inattention. Diver Law exists to keep us together, and to keep us alive, and is simple: if your diving partner perishes, you inherit their life’s responsibilities. It is simple, clear, and extremely legally binding.
It is thus that we divers are bonded as brother and sister. Bonded in responsibility, in fraternity, and in fish pervertery. It is thus that we remain strong.
I, Phil Glanschirp, am a scuba diver. Or at least I was before James Cameron ruined my life.
Depending on who you ask in the diving community, James Cameron was either a missed opportunity, a charlatan, or an aberration. He was a missed opportunity because, despite his interest in oceanography and the power that he wields culturally, he did not include a single shot in Titanic of caviar being massaged out of a beluga sturgeonfish’s asshole. He was a charlatan because, like so many other rich men with expensive hobbies, he expected to swoop in and solve all of our problems despite an almost total lack of experience. He was an aberration because he did not once express a desire to fuck a fish.
There are technical and logistical factors underpinning the incident, of course, but it is my sincere belief that James Cameron was turned into compressed bonechum at the bottom of the ocean that day because he did not develop the deep bonds shared by the diving community. The rest of us have spent person-years together drinking in semi-abandoned dive bars (pun unavoidable) where the marine air rusts the emptying beer kegs hungrily. We have been bored, together, alone, in steel bedrooms with a view of the infinite waterline, passing well-thumbed copies of Fishy Rendezvous Monthly amongst ourselves samizdatically despite the fact such material is not just allowed but encouraged. As we pull our hands to our chest ready to slip backwards from the deck into Andaman, deep green waters, we hold Diver Law to our hearts, each of us an oath-bound Hippocrates.
I must admit that, on a cosmological level, much of the blame for the misfortune I now find myself in must fall upon my own shoulders. My excellence in the field led me to deeper and more dangerous dives, which usually means being led deeper into the cold and lightless parts of the ocean. Those who dive past a certain depth – the depth at which life loses its form and changes to vague, sexless creatures like urchins or sea cucumbers, also known as the “Pillusker Attraction Depth”, i.e. the depth at which 1940s diver Proust Pillusker stopped feeling horny – are viewed with utter suspicion.
Yet I allowed myself to lured by the usual siren songs of fame, money, and recognition when I joined the team of the Deepsea Challenger 2. Although the Deepsea Challenger mission had already reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench, James wanted to do another go-around as an excuse to delay his fifth divorce. And I was to be his wingman, travelling in a second ship to look out for any art deco bullshit that may have once belonged on the Titanic. He beckoned, and I came, and we dove toward the centre of the Earth.
And so it was that, on 7:42pm on the 21st of March, 2020, my submersible’s video feed showed a crack appear along the glass of James’ submersible all at once, as if smited. In that moment I knew there was nothing that could be done. Not even a second later the submersible was crushed, altered to an impossible miniature form as if it were a can of tomatoes under the heel of an industrial press, a jet of James sent firing out of a breach and into the water like a silly string of vicsera.
In that moment I knew there was nothing that could be done.
By Diver Law, I was bonded to James Cameron’s earthly responsibilities.
I would have to write and direct the next four Avatar sequels.
I should be fine with being out of my depth. Christ. And yet I find myself floundering (stop – you don’t have time to be horny), this responsibility tied to me like lead weights around my ankles. I’m not any kind of director, let alone one who should be responsible for a multi-billion-dollar franchise. The lawyers have found no way around it and no way out. There must be four Avatar sequels, the money must be spent, and I must be the one to make it happen. But I cannot possibly do the thing that is asked of me. I cannot do what I need to do.
Am I not a creative being? Do I not ache and burst with the same pain and failure and urges as Melville, or Hemingway, or del Toro? I am large, I contain multitudes! Creation should not be rationed to only those qualified! Have I not something to say about this most human condition? The more I think of this burden of mine, the more it swells from itch to pleasure. I feel like my pipes will burst if I do not turn this tap, and fill to the brim these Avatars with myself!
I must do what I need to do. I will prove I am not just the man who had to make Avatar 2, 3, and 4 because I am legally bound to, and along the way if some of myself makes its way into the movies, would that be so bad? It is time for me to show the world who Phil Glanschirp really is.
turnnoffyourmind
romaincrisis
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