The Dark Fish

Welcome to the cycle of the Pisces. I'm a little late in announcing it as it officially began on February the 19th, but as a Pisces I am expected to procrastinate.

We are the twelfth and final sign of the Zodiac, representing Death and Resurrection. Ruled by Neptune, we are the only true water sign of the Zodiac, never emerging from the water like our Cancer and Scorpio brethren. Pisces are the dreamers, the moody, reclusive poets, and the sad and troubled artists. There is always a palpable sorrow attached to the Pisces. You can see it in their eyes on the rare occasions that they look directly at you. More often it comes out in their art. Pisces don't simply make art, they bleed it. They vomit it out. Piscean souls are very delicate, you see - made out of glass and sea foam. They can't carry around such heavy burdens of empathic sorrow and tragedy for long. They can swim in the dark waters, but with such a heavy rusted anchor attached to them, they will sink in the blackness and drown in the despair. So they release it in furious bursts of music, writing, painting or acting. And when it's out, they don't try to reclaim it or declare ownership of it. It belongs to everyone now, and whether it's appreciated or damned, they simply smile and shrug and move along.

I've always found the months of February and March to be the bleakest and most sorrowful time of year, when everything is cold and silent and fast asleep. Winter is almost over, Spring is on the way, but here we are in the Held Breath season.

I've always been very much aware of the darkness and sadness present in the world, even as a very young girl. I disliked adults who baby-talked me, called me "cute" or feigned enthusiasm for my presence. I sensed the dishonesty. I knew they were putting on an act and the insincerity made me sick. I shied away from attention. I was happier painting or writing stories in my bedroom on bright summer days. I hated school. I didn't care about clothes or boys or popularity. In the third grade, I made the mistake of using the word "mysterious" in front of my friends, who looked at me as though I had suddenly offered them a maggot sandwich for lunch. Another time, on the bus to Jr. High, I looked out of the window at a country lane which spooled off into the distant morning mist. I asked the girl next to me: "Have you ever looked down a road and wondered where it goes?" She looked at me, annoyed, and answered "No." in a tone that suggested I was not only a nerd, but that I would most certainly die a virgin with the word "UNCOOL" scrawled upon my headstone. I never voiced another observation like that again. I kept things to myself from that point forward. The people around me were content to dip their toes in the shallow end, but they could venture no deeper without drowning. I, however, had gills. I was a a dreamer. I was a freak.

So here is my birthday gift for you, fellow Fish People. A list of films, books and music that you can appreciate in a way that no other sign of the Zodiac can. They may not have been written by a Pisces, starred any Pisces or even been inspired by a Pisces, but they somehow caught the current that moves dark and mournfully through the Pisces soul at all times.

#1 - Ringu

Sadako Yamamura, born to a psychic woman on a volcanic island in the middle of a fisherman's domain. Her father? Well, no one is sure. Her mother spent her days sitting on the beach, staring at the sea and whispering to the waves in a language that had never been uttered by any land-bound human. But local legend purported that if one dared to "frolic in brine" the goblins of the sea would either destroy you or claim you as one of their own. Sadako's mother was apparently chosen to be a vessel for the offspring of an ocean god as the result of her frolicking. Sadako, born from the sea and sent to an early watery grave, kills with a thought and leaves a trail of seawater behind her. It is revealed a few sequels later that Sadako was actually a dual entity - a dark fish and a light fish, a good twin and an evil twin - who ultimately combine and gives itself over to her destiny. For all that Sadako is a cold, murdering spirit bent on vengeance, she is also a young girl whose sorrow is apparent when her rotted corpse is pulled from the depths of the well that has become her tomb. Oozing tears, she allows herself to be comforted and mourned, but she cannot and will not change her scales.


#2 - The Drowning Girl
by Caitlin R. Kiernan

Caitlin Kiernan - herself a Gemini, the only other twin sign of the Zodiac - penned this semi-autobiographical narrative of a schizophrenic young woman who finds herself caught between a mermaid and a wolf girl. Imp, our protagonist, is a lost soul, working in an art store in Providence, Rhode Island and simply existing in the absence of her mother, who succumbed to her own mental torment. Imp, regardless of when her birthday occurs, is a true Pisces - unsure of herself, fragile, dreamy and kind, unwilling to inflict pain on anyone except herself. Torn between fantasy and reality, Imp is unsure whether or not to cling to the life preserver of love with her girlfriend, or drown in the sea of her hopes and fears. This Mortal Coil's Piscean ballad Song to the Siren is referenced throughout this sad tale. It is an absolute must-read for anyone who has ever felt out of place in this cold, stony world, but especially for the wounded Fish people, yanked by cruel hands from our soft waters and left to flop and gasp on the concrete.



 #3 - Annwyn, Beneath the Waves
Faith & The Muse

Faith & the Muse's second studio album might well have been recorded in the Sea King's caverns. It has a darkness in its depths, but sends pearls up to the surface, riding the siren song of Monica Richards gorgeous voice. If you listen to nothing else on this album, listen to the track The Sea Angler, based on a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It's sorrow incarnate, but also a beautifully baited hook, luring you in with a promise and drowning you with a grin.








#4 - Dagon

The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft is a classic tale of alienation, for anyone who has never felt comfortable in their own skin and questions their existence in a world which seems to know them not at all. Brought to the big screen as Dagon, the tale is pitch perfect - dark, waterlogged, soggy and moldy with squamous secrets and eerie inheritances. When you have spent your entire life thus far feeling as though you don't fit in, finding your home - no matter how horrible and monstrous that home may be, or how inbred and mutated your blood family - it's a relief to find the answers at last, even if they lie at the bottom of the ocean in the tentacles of an ancient beast called Dagon by those who fear him, and  "daddy" by those he has spawned.

#5 - Disintegration
The Cure

The Cure's darkest, bleakest, loneliest album was released in 1989, and immediately went into repeat play mode on the turntable of the record store where I worked as a teenager. Standout tracks for Pisces include Prayers For Rain and The Same Deep Water As You. The entire album is a musical equivalent of standing knee deep in the surf on a stormy, overcast day, waiting for the tide to come in and allowing it to slowly suck you under. Not even Mozart could have penned such a majestic Death Mass as this album.







#6 - Ophelia
by Lisa Klein

Pisces women and Shakespearean women have one unfortunate thing in common - they are perceived as weak by the majority of others. Nothing could be further from the truth. We do tend to avoid confrontation and dislike anger, but we are not weak by any means. On the contrary, we are probably better prepared to deal with the worst case scenario, because we have already imagined it. We've been expecting it. And when it arrives, it's no surprise to us. Shakespeare thought that Ophelia was a fragile willow frond who would break beneath the slightest weight. Lisa Klein knows better, redrawing Ophelia as a shrewd, fiercely independent young woman who knows that no man can ever save her, so she saves herself instead, relying on her knowledge rather than her beauty or social standing. Faking her own death by drowning, Ophelia escapes the chaos of the Danish kingdom and journeys to France, and begins a new adventure which makes Hamlet's drama seem like whiny teenage angst by comparison.



#7 - Pan's Labyrinth

Yet again, a girl named Ophelia (or, in this case, Ofelia) rises above the ugliness of her mortal existence and descends into paradise. Notice I said descends, not ascends. Because director del Toro knows that the true safe haven is below, in the dark, where only a certain kind of soul can find beauty and solace. In sacrificing herself to save her infant brother, Ofelia reclaims the throne of the underworld where she rules as Princess, safe in her daydreams of fairies and fauns and shiny new shoes.

#8 - It'll End In Tears
 This Mortal Coil

Pure heartbreaking hope from start to finish. Piscean highlights would have to be the aforementioned and legendary Song To The Siren by Elizabeth Fraser and Waves Become Wings by Lisa Gerrard. A perfect soundtrack for those dreary, emotional days when a fish girl just has to hide out in her room with the curtains drawn and the only illumination provided by that dusty string of Christmas lights strung over the bed.









#9 - Something Rich & Strange
by Patricia McKillip

Lured by a siren song, a curmudgeonly young artist from a seaside tourist town is drawn beneath the waves by a sea fairy both enchanting and cruel. His girlfriend, half seduced by an ocean creature named Adam Finn, follows him down to an underwater realm of ship wrecks, iridescent shimmering scales and tears turned to pearls. Drawing inspiration from Shakespeare's The Tempest, Patricia McKillip goes the full fathom five and deeper, drawing up a sunken treasure of Piscean gold.












#10 - Valerie & Her Week of Wonders

Though there isn't an ocean or a single fish in sight (oh, except for the floppy, wriggly one that the buxom, bouncy barmaid tucks into her blousy bodice), Valerie captures the inside of a Piscean's head perfectly - draped in pearls, teeming with flowers, bursting with beauty and seeded with vampires. Valerie herself, a rather Piscean spirit, is making the transition from childhood to maturity and the way is fraught with difficulties. When faced with unpleasantness, Valerie escapes back into her fantasy world of lacy white dresses, velvet ribbons and soft feather beds. Eventually, evil is overcome and Valerie goes to sleep once more, knowing she will wake into a beautiful world of unlimited possibilities.