Gandie's Grand Gondola

ᑭᐦᒋ ᑲᒥᕀ ᓂᑲᒧᐃᐧᐣ

The sun's heat wrapped itself around the old man's bald head, deeply tanned from a habit of not using sunscreen though the old man doubted it would have helped judging by the way he had spent his retirement. He sat in his favourite place, a chair fashioned from maple wood that faced the beach. He had his eyes closed, but not asleep rather listening to the Ocean letting the wind rock him back and forth with every wave slapping the rocks below. Or that is what would normally have happened, but for a while now the Ocean had been still.

The old man's moment of serenity was disrupted for the first time in many months when the old man heard the voices of two women walking down along the edge of the water. It's a shame, on a day so rare as this where the sun stroked his face just ever so slightly a feeling he craved for during his time overlooking the Sea. Of all days to be interrupted it fell on such an eventful day, the old man groaned and resigned himself to listening in on the activities of the two who had come walking below his residence and so close to his friend.

Hey, did you hear anything about that rumour going around recently?

What, the one about being able to hear the Ocean sing? You're not seriously thinking that it's true, right?

Shut up. On a normal day, above the sounds of the waves on rocks if you listen closely-

The old man flinched as he heard a loud smack, though his eyes remained closed, ears still focused on the conversation unfolding beneath him.

Come on let's go. There's no way the Ocean can sing, you got that? What you say you heard was nothing more than the sound of the breeze. You know, one of these days that credulous nature of yours might get you roped into a pyramid scheme!

This seems to irritate the other women even further, as the one lets out a quick scream even louder than before, as another smack can be heard making its way up over the rocks causing the old man to flinch for a second time. The old man is unsure how their relationship can exist while being so violent, as he heard laughter from the two after the previous blow was dealt.

The old man can hear the two women start to argue once again a good distance away, though he can't make out much of what they are fighting about, it sounds like it has something to do with a boy band until the old man is no longer able to hear the voices from his home overlooking the Ocean high above. Having reached the climax of his entertainment for the evening, the old man opens his eyes and stands up.

A salty breeze blew past the old man on his way into the house, rocking the chair back and forth much faster than before, as the old man enters through an old wooden door whose paint has been worn nearly completely thin from a life of severe storms and hurricanes. The man heads to the furthest room in the house walking past rows of emptied display cases which must've been emptied not too long beforehand, judging by the lack of dust in the displays. When the man returns he is holding a mystical looking conch shell coloured green, blue, and red and proceeds to return to the back porch overlooking the Ocean.

Pained by his late age and declining health, the old man leans on the railing of his porch encroaching the edge of the cliff, with the impossibly rainbow coloured conch in hand, and to avoid the gripping clutch of Death's hand around his throat, the old man remembered as far back as he could, to when he first heard the singing.


It was a chilly spring night, and his younger self had been called out to work that Saturday. Apparently, the township's water plant was having a problem pumping water and since he was the closest employee on call he was assigned to the task and pulled from his sleep. No bother, the man had thought at the time, as he had no plans the following day anyways, after-all he hadn't made any friends or attempts to talk to people in all his time working with the township, and as with all weekend shifts the township paid double for however long it would take him to fix the problem

Even If he had knowledge of what was to await him when he pulled into the water plant in his work truck, he was sure he'd have gone about the problem the same way. Whether knowing what was to come at the time would have prepared him for it however, he could not say.

When the man exited the truck his first thought was of how salty the air was, though the water plant was built not too far away from the coast so it wasn't out of ordinary for the breeze to carry the salt inland. The water plant was meant to take water directly from the Ocean and filter it into drinking water when it leaves the building through a series of pipes out the back. They had all been damp, but the man couldn't feel any water flowing through them and with that he walked to the side of the water plant to unlock the door.

The man entered the treatment plant through the side door with a key kept by all township employees working nights when the doors would be locked otherwise. On the other side of the door was a medium sized room of concrete, with two big garage doors used during the day to store the water department's work trucks, and two other rooms. Walking through the garage the man noticed the door to the department office was left slightly open with the lights still on, and he went to shut it. After turning the lights off and shutting the door to the office, the man hears a noise come from the only other room he hasn't entered so far, and goes to check it out believing it to be part of the problem he came to fix.

The man entered into a dark narrow room with the sounds of running generators in one of the far corners still churning along normally, and flicked a switch on the wall to his right, turning on the lights. In front of the man lining the wall opposite the door, was a row of pipes twisting and turning under and over each other like a misunderstood art piece. The man took to tapping each of the pipes and testing the valves, and everything showed to be working as normal, frustrated the man went and turned a red valve he hadn't checked the functions of yet. Stuck. He re-adjusted himself for a better grip on the valve and turned it again, this time having it give about a good quarter rotation until he stopped again when he heard a noise from inside the filter. Swoosh Swoosh. Concerned by the strange noises coming from the filter, the man grabbed a ladder and climbed on top of it to the maintenance hatch—a metal trapdoor locked by a latch at the top of the cylindrical water filter.

Pshhhhh, could be heard when the man opened the maintenance valve, depressurizing the water filter as he climbed on top to have a peer inside the machine. Fixing a flashlight on the interior of the filtering tank, the man scanned the confines of the tank to no avail, and when shining it in the far right corner of the tank on another collection of water, he swore he saw something reacting to the flashlight.

Without time for the man to react, from within the confines of where the flashlight was pointed, a mass of water shot out of the filtering tank and hit the man directly in the face causing a loud FWSHHHH sound. Startled by the rapidly unfolding events around him, the man lost his grip on top of the water filter tank and fell off landing on his back, which caused him to release all of the air in his lungs. Having lost hold of his flashlight, it shot around the room rebounding off of pipes and concrete, until it rolled to a stop on the wet floor facing the man, somewhat blinding him from across the room.

After a series of loud coughs and wallops to the chest the man, still squinting due to the flashlight in his eyes, spits out a mouthful of salty water. The man gets up off the floor, head and torso now damp from the splash of water that made him lose his balance on the filtering tank, and heads to the opposite side of the room and picks up the flashlight turning it off as there is already enough light to see without it. He turns around while sliding the flashlight back into its place on his tool-belt, and in the corner of the room spots an impossible site which makes him lose grip of the flashlight once again, as it dropped to the floor.

What the man saw that perplexed him so much so, into dropping his flashlight with just a glance was a singular mass of water sitting in a physically impossible way. The way the mass of water was shaped resembled what was shown to happen aboard the ISS when water is introduced to zero-gravity; that being, it clings tightly into a sphere just as the mass of water was seen to do by the man.

After coming to his senses for the second time that night, the man slowly approached the mass of water as he would a wild animal, unsure of its properties, and unsure of whether it was alive as it seemed to be slowly expanding and retracting the outer shape of its body resembling the process of breathing. So it is alive the man thought. After he had somehow already adjusted to the situation, the man called out to the water sprite.

"Ugh hello, can you hear me little guy?"

The question had garnered no response from the water sprite, other than it's occasional expanding and retracting the water was still.

"Okay, then. Well if you can hear me, it's okay. I won't try and hurt you I promise."

Still no sounds were coming from the water sprite, but it did move itself away from the wall and towards the man by a couple of centimetres, it's assumed breathing slowing down which the man thought may mean that it is trusting him a bit, which had put a grin on his face.

"Alright, well for now I think I'm going to give you a name so that I have something feasible to refer to you as."

While the man stood back up to think of a name for the water sprite, it rapidly dashed forward climbing his legs and perching itself onto the middle of his back. Startling him, but not enough to make him fall this time, and it was at this point he had thought of a name.

"Aquarius"


Before he knew it, he was back home with a physics defying water sprite in his bathtub. How did it end up like that, he was just going to get rid of the thing now, so why would he have taken it home, he had thought. He left the sprite in the bathtub to do as it pleased and heard a series of splashes and noises covered by the sound of rushing water while he walked back to the living room.

Reaching for the remote the man turned on the television to distract himself from the otherworldly presence he had so quickly dubbed Aquarius, residing now in his washroom down the hall. With a split the screen came to life, displaying a Local News segment interviewing a local Nova Scotia man. When the man on the television started to speak, it was then that the man knew he was too late "I EVEN SENT A VIDEO OF MYSELF OFF TO TOM CRUISE O-" the man quickly presses the power button on the remote to avoid causing further trauma to his ears, as the volume had been previously set to max. Rubbing his ears, the man remembered turning it up loud when he was drinking by himself the day before. Without much time for his ears to recuperate, another loud noise, this time from the bathroom brought trauma to his ears, a distorted scream coming from where he left that water sprite.

Rushing to the bathroom knocking bags of garbage,and cans over rattle rattle, the man opens the door with a swing to see Aquarius the water sprite being sucked down the drain that had previously had the plug in it. The water sprite was holding on solely by the bottles of shampoo it had swallowed, the man assumed being too large to fit through the drain. The man not wanting to bear the noise of its gurgled screams, picked up the bottle of shampoo along with the watery body surrounding it, he ignores the strange sensation and lifts the sprite out of the drain requiring a great deal of force and as the sprite is removed from the drain the man see's it has grown to over twice its size at around the whole bathtub in volume. The water sprite started to vibrate over and over, until finally it calmed down as it let go of all of the man's hygiene supplies shampoo bottle and all and flings itself onto the man's chest like when he first found it. The man smiled for the first time in many years.

Struggling to hold the now massive Aquarius, he looks into the bulbous presumed head of the sprite. "I didn't introduce myself when we met did I? Since you're going to be here for a while I presume, you ought to know my name. I'm Viktor."

Before going to bed that night, two things happened. The first event being, Viktor went into his garage and found a can of sealant to close off the drain to the bathtub, so that Aquarius had somewhere to stay without ruining his floors. The second was, for the first time in his life he felt a need for a bigger home.


For the last time, Viktor left the confines of his home overlooking the sea from above, and began to head below. It had taken him many years to save for that mediocre property, but he loved it for all it was, a place he could watch her grow. The sea had been silent for weeks around his home, no waves slapping against the rocks below, nor a salty breeze to blow against his cheek. At the time he hadn't known why, or what he had done to upset her, but if three nights of waking up at midnight and heaving blood against the wooden boards of his home had anything to tell him, it was that his hourglass was almost empty.

He knew now more than ever just how much she cared for him, even if she couldn't be heard through the conch anymore, he thought while stumbling with each step, on the weathered planks of the stairs built to descend to the beach below. When he eventually made it to the bottom, Viktor looked to a mound of beautiful impossibly coloured conch shells similar to the one he kept clutched in his hand, but nowhere near as flawless, neatly stacked in a pile all gifts from her over their many years together. Slipping his prized mystical conch of green, blue, and red, into his short's left pocket the man got to work dispersing the pile of shells along the vast stretch of beach, ignoring the raging pains in his sides. He knows his efforts are not for his fear of death, but out of fear of leaving her all alone, again.


It had been around ten years since Viktor had purchased his dream home, a small house of 1500 square feet. It sat perched atop a sheer cliff face that dropped off to a beach marking the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, the house's exterior made from an old wooden plank that had seen it close to its limit when it came to weathering. The man hadn't minded this however, as the selling point for him when he had first bought the house were it's two most prominent features: the massive 15 foot wide, 30 foot long, and 14 foot deep pool that made up the entire left-hand side of the house, and the back deck, which connected with the pool and a porch that hosted an open balcony encroaching the edge of the cliff face, overlooking the Sea below. As he walked alongside the empty pool, Viktor laughed remembering back to a few years prior, when he had to move the water sprite from his old house all by himself.

He had borrowed a portable water trailer from his work at the township, and brought it back to his old house after he had moved everything else to the new one on the cliff side. That way after moving Aquarius he would be done with everything, though he wasn't sure how Aquarius would react to his solution to moving the now 80 gallon water sprite out of the house and into the water trailer. He remembers the solution he had thought of then, to use a water pump and hose to move Aquarius into the water trailer parked outside of the bathroom window. A genius idea at the time he had thought, until after he was finished and the water sprite had appeared traumatized after being sucked through the pump, before it would react to Viktor again he remembered having to apologize profusely before he brought it back to the new house.

When introducing the 80 gallon Aquarius to the pool that would be his new ecosystem, the sprite seemed to have forgotten all of the trauma from being pumped out the window back at their old home. It flung itself out of the tank without the help of Viktor and rocketed to the bottom of the pool, and like a cat it spread its aquatic body limp around the bottom just barely meeting the edges of the space. Clearly excited by this, Aquarius had then wrapped part of itself around Viktor's head, he had been used to this however, and did not panic as he could still breath through the water encompassing him, though a little more effort was required. All times prior to then, when the sprite would wrap around his head had been a playful gesture, but that time it was completely different, as the man had heard a woman's voice speaking vibrantly through his inner monologue, a scary feeling but he had remembered surrendering himself to the voice. The voice had reverberated through his head saying KI-TA-TA-MI-HIN and kept repeating this phrase, which showed him a series of strange symbols, ᑭᑕᑕᒥᐦᐃᐣ. At the time he had not known what dialect the symbols deviated from confusing him further, though he had strained himself to try and memorize what they looked like nonetheless.


It had been a couple of weeks since he discovered the water sprite was capable of a sort of telepathic speech, and he had been visiting the library back in his old township to see if he could find which dialect it had spoken to him in. Since he was still working for the township at this point, it had taken him a while to find the correct language since he could only go to the library on the weekends when he wasn't working. But when he was sitting in the library's reading section one weekend looking through a Cree to English Dictionary, he came across the same symbols shown to him by Aquarius weeks back ᑭᑕᑕᒥᐦᐃᐣ. It was listed on the Cree to English side of the dictionary under a direct translation of 'Thank you, you make me smile, you please me'. Viktor was happy to hear that Aquarius had appreciated the new scenery and it's new pool, although he already had suspected as much by the sprite's initial reaction.

When he got back to the house that night, he ordered himself a copy of the Cree to English Dictionary that he was reading from at the library to make it easier to communicate with the water sprite.


Aquarius had stopped responding to it's name after he ordered the dictionary online, and until it's arrival in three weeks Viktor was left wallowing believing that his only friend had now turned its back on him. When the package finally arrived Viktor tore it open and began to scan the entirety of the book by flipping through it fairly quickly. Being extremely worried about the water sprite, since it had stopped its usual unnatural and twisting currents for three weeks laying calm just as a normal pool without a water spirit inhabiting it would. Writing down a bunch of translated questions and words for use in talking to his friend, he headed to the side of the house to speak with the water spirit.

When he arrived at the side of the pool nothing happened, as was normal for the past three weeks and one last time he tried calling the name he had given the water sprite.

"Aquarius!"

There was no response, as he had figured would happen. This time he was prepared for it's response of silence, as he had with him a stack of papers each with the Cree symbols on them. Viktor grabbed the first sheet which had the symbols ᑕᓂᓯ printed on one side and read the pronunciation written on the back aloud "TA-NI-SI" which translated to 'How are you?'. No response from the water sprite was shown from the first sheet as it floated to the bottom of the pool. The second of the stack of papers was a sheet with the Cree words ᐃᐧᐦᐃᓱᐤ Viktor read from the back of the sheet of paper "WI-HI-SOW", which was the best translation he could find for asking the name of the sprite though the literal translation goes 'He says his name'. After dropping this sheet into the water there was a strange vibration coming from the surface of the pool, and to his amazement and relief the water sprite rose out of the water with terrific speed rushing around Viktor over and over. Out of joy for the return of his friend's vitality, Viktor almost failed to notice when the water sprite lay a beautiful conch shell of green, blue, and red colours in his hands, such a pattern was clearly not natural he thought but such things were not inconceivable to him after all he had encountered. When the water sprite released him from it's grasp, it returned to the confines of the pool sloshing against the edge Viktor was closest to. From his hands Viktor felt a vibration much like that of a cellular phone except it was coming from the conch shell, instinctively he held it up to his ear and whispered "Hello?". "Niya Itowa Kihchi Kamiy" their voice had said when he listened close, then he had felt the force of the voice traveling through his body just as another set of Cree symbols were forcibly brought to his imagination, ᓂᔭ ᐃᑐᐊᐧ ᑭᐦᒋ ᑲᒥᕀ. After a couple of times repeating the string of symbols and the phrase the conch fell silent along with the water sprite returning to being still in the pool, although with a little more activity than before.

Viktor decided to toss the rest of the sheets of paper away that night after he had translated the last thing the water sprite had said,.The symbols said by the sprite, ᓂᔭ ᐃᑐᐊᐧ ᑭᐦᒋ ᑲᒥᕀ translated roughly to, 'I am one of the kind of the Sea'


The following day Viktor made his way back outside to check on his friend, who he was pretty sure now he had been calling by the wrong name for years. This theory of his however loose, was waiting to be tested so upon approaching the calm water sprite in the pool, VIktor got down on his hands and knees close to the water's surface, and whispered what he believed to be the name of the ocean.

"Kihchi Kamiy"

Upon hearing him say the words, the water sprite let out a loud bubbling noise, and a flash of movement came from the center of the pool as the newly named water sprite launched itself directly into Viktor's unsuspecting face, knocking him out cold.


It was dark, with the clicking of crickets in the air along with the sounds of waves hitting the rocks and breeze passing overhead when Viktor awoke from his unconsciousness. Without paying much mind to himself or the time that he awoke, he goes back over to the pool as he had been blown a fair distance away when he was knocked unconscious. Upon inspecting the pool the man sees that it is fully empty, spare a couple tiny puddles of water here and there. Panicking Viktor checks for his conch given to him by the ocean, or Kihchi Kamiy. When he pulled the conch out of his pocket he felt it start to vibrate again, and immediately held it to his ear, only to hear the sound of waves and ocean breeze even louder than on his porch, listening harder however he heard a humming noise, the voice of his friend. Hurrying the man rushes to his back porch overlooking the Sea and heads down the steep stairs descending the cliff face, almost tripping on the way down. After reaching the bottom he runs out to the sea and is subsequently greeted by the entirety of the water in front of his beachside home moving and twirling in a way that defied physics, a way similar to a certain friend of his.

Almost in disbelief Viktor watched as the Sea danced.


Finishing his recount of his life's happiest moments Viktor had arrived perched at the edge of the water, it lay unmoving beside his feet, no swaying of the tide to be seen. With his mind now cleared, Viktor started his final steps out into the sea, his feet savouring each grain of sand under the still waters of Kihchi Kamiy. He thought of the many conch shells he had meticulously spread along the beach. They were waiting to be found by another, and will hopefully help them hear her voice, as he wouldn't be there to witness its beauty much longer. After the water reaches up to his waist, a stinging took itself upon Viktor's eyes, and causes him to stop walking pausing amid the level surface of the sea, and almost as if on cue he feels a vibration from his left pocket. Already knowing who it is, the stinging becomes much worse as he whispers to the sea "I won't be long" before lifting the conch out of his pocket and against his ear. Viktor anticipated the sounds of the waves hitting rocks, and the breeze cutting through the air, as what was normal with the conch shell, but this time there were no sounds of that nature to be heard. This time however, without the need to listen above the sounds of the water and breeze, he heard the voice of a woman humming though with the way she talked it sounded like a grand piece.

And so with the sounds of the ocean singing in his ear the man walked forward into the depths below.


Crunch, crunch, crunch the sand screamed when walked on, but isn't heard over the sound of the harsh yet methodical breeze created from the crashing waves on the rocks fallen from the cliff face behind it over the course of time. The footsteps stop as they brush against an object buried in the sand with the side of their foot, and turn to pick whatever it is up. The object when inspected is coated with a layer of sand but still the colours of the shell permeate through majestically. Instinctively the man holds the conch to his ear, and listens. Above the sounds of waves on rock, and through the sounds of the salty breeze, the man could just barely make out the sound of two distorted voices. They were singing.

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