New Flash Fiction: Mussolini's Catfish

Today's flash fiction author is Gary Every who offers up a surreal combination of aviation history and urban fantasy that reads like it could almost be true... Gary says the story "is based on some of my favorite modern myths and historical quirks in Arizona," and adds that his work has been previously published in Tales of the Talisman, Dreams and Nightmares, Mythic Deliriumand many others including four nominations for the Rhysling Award for Year's Best Science Fiction Poetry.

Mussolini's Catfish
by Gary Every

In the middle of an Arizona lake two giant catfish swim back and forth, guarding the home they call a castle. The catfish are humongous, long slender whiskers twitching as they sense the vibrating waters, trying to catch a scent of food. These giant catfish are large enough to swallow a human being whole. Yet, a scuba diver who dared to approach would quickly realize that the catfish’s underwater abode is the sunken ruin of an old seaplane. What is an antique Italian seaplane doing on the bottom of an Arizona Lake?

Charles Lindbergh was not the first aviator to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. The first pilot to navigate the skies above the Sea of Darkness was an Italian general named Francesco de Pinedo. He crossed the vast Atlantic in his giant seaplane, skimming just above the surface of the water all the way from Africa to Brazil like some sort of gargantuan mechanical sea gull. For some reason his direction and destination denied him credit for being the first aviator to fly non stop across the Atlantic.  

To drum up public support, the Italian general flew a barnstorming tour, climbing the Americas northward, spreading goodwill on behalf of his Italian dictator wherever he went. The general barely cleared the steep mountains of New Mexico, sputtering above the cactus before landing with a splash in the placid waters of Lake Roosevelt, Arizona. The Italian aviator posed for pictures with the press, gave a long winded speech, and sat down for a delicious feast.

A local lad was hired by the presiding rural redneck representatives to fill the gas tanks of Benito Mussolini’s giant seaplane all the way to the brim. The Italian general was horrified. The amount of gasoline needed to cross the Atlantic made the large and lumbering seaplane too heavy to fly above the rugged mountains of the southwest. The general demanded that the gas tanks be emptied, making the seaplane light enough to fly above the spiked peaks of the Superstition Mountains. The local lad, all freckles and tan, was hired once again, this time to siphon gasoline out from the tanks, hoses drooling liquid petrol atop the watery surface of Lake Roosevelt.  

It was easy work but it was boring and the local lad began smoking a cigarette to pass the time when a young lady came walking by. She was a pretty little schoolgirl, pigtails and daisy dukes. When she dropped a hint that she sure would like an ice cream cone that handsome young man grabbed her by the arm and they marched off to the ice cream parlor hand in hand. The last thing he did the local lad flicked his cigarette behind him. The siphon hoses had covered the water with an oily layer of gasoline and soon Lake Roosevelt burned and burned until Benito Mussolini’s seaplane was consumed in flames and sank to the bottom of this inland desert sea.  

It is not easy when you fall head over heels in love by creating a terrible tragedy, especially in a small town. How do you live down the shame?  Do your children become the town laughing stocks for their entire lives? The local lad and the pretty young schoolgirl, so deeply in love it hurt, one night hand in hand, walked to edge of the dock and leapt, drowning themselves and their sorrows in the dark murky waters of Lake Roosevelt. 

Still holding hands, the tragic lovers sank to the bottom of the giant pond and sat there until the meat began to rot on their bones. Then the foul and fetid smell attracted catfish. Two catfish fed on the lovers and they grew and grew, becoming giant catfish as majestic as underwater dragons, long tails slicing through the water, whiskers and catfish beards trailing as they swim. When the catfish roar, shock waves race underwater, vibrations flowing beneath the lake from shore to shore causing fish to hide in the closest rock crevice. The catfish roar causes herons and ducks to leap away on the wing.  

So there they are on the bottom of the biggest lake in the middle of the Arizona desert, the bones of two star crossed lovers whose spirits have transformed and now reside inside two giant catfish who swim back and forth in front of the sunken ruins of Benito Mussolini’s seaplane, on the bottom of Lake Roosevelt like sea dragons guarding an underwater castle.