How To Shuffle

I was taking shallow breaths. With each breath came more pain-- more pain and less air. I wanted to wipe that bead of sweat off my forehead, but I couldn't. It I knew it would cost me my life. The blood in my head was pounding; I swore I could hear it. I could feel the heat beating down on me and the bright lights blinding me. The pressure was on. It was do or die.

Well, at least it was for the disturbingly green fish I was performing dorsal fin surgery on.

“Umm... Doctor? Do you want me to switch your oxygen pump back on? You kind of kicked it and... Well, I don't think you're getting any oxygen at the moment,” the oddly spiny-looking fish to my right told me.

It was a peculiar sight. The fish was talking to me. Of course, I wouldn't have expected anything else, but still, I have to admit it was pretty odd. I knew being transferred down here would mean working with these fish, but I must admit, it was very... interesting attempting to perform surgery with them.

“Yes please,” I replied in gasps.

The spined fish whose name escaped me opened the valve. I could feel the oxygen allowing my system to function again. No, I didn't have some 'condition'. I was a fine specimen. I mean, I couldn't provide you with a description of me. Well, I was an off-white colour, but that's the best I can do, and I had hair (although that is not helpful in any way...). Bottom line, I'm a llama and as I dearly hope you know, llamas don't live in water, not unless they lose a bet to their insane best friend. Note: llamas cannot eat a quarter of their body weight in chocolate OR dance.

Yes, I lived underwater... temporarily, before the incident that occurred that day. We preferred to call it an 'exchange'. No, there wasn't some fish out on land somewhere attempting to perform surgery on a llama. Let's just say my insane friend took care of him.

“Doctor Prymate! You must continue with this! This woman paid good money to get her fin enlarged!” another fish said to me. I didn't even bother to differentiate.

Hey, I never mentioned that I performed cosmetic surgery. I was still do or die time for that poor green fish (although I'd argue that she looked quite a sickly shade of green without my help). For one, I'd never done the surgery before. I'm also not a surgeon, but they don't know that. They'd never know. I mean, they hadn't even noticed the most obvious thing.

I wasn't not Doctor Prymate. Doctor Prymate is a primate. Me? I'm a llama, not so sure what we are (a mammal?), probably a reason why I also don't qualify for a surgeon. They all believed I was a monkey who came to replace their old surgeon who was a total baboon, literally. I thought they'd never notice. After all, those imbecilic water-dwellers had never seen a monkey before.

So anyway, I started the surgery and everything went according to plan: horribly. I was pretty sure their dorsal fins didn't bend that way...

I continued with the surgery, pretending I had done it a million times before, hoping that no one would realise that I was completely clueless. I mean, they were fish, right? If they were stupid to want to have some expensive and risky surgery to simply increase their aesthetic appeal, they would be gullible, right?

I was right. They had no idea that I had completely mucked up this procedure up. Well, technically, I couldn't because I made it up in order to impress them enough to finish this bet because frankly, I couldn't dance (in hindsight, walking into a human town and dancing would've been more wise).

I then realised that I had been looking at the cave ceiling for fifteen minutes or so while performing my fictional surgery. I nervously turned my head to face the green fish and met her angry gaze. The anesthetic was clearly wearing off, although I admit, the situation could've been worse. So next came the second step: run like hell.

I tried to run from brightly lit cave (I know, right?) they had set up for all of the superficial fish in the sea (well, at least tried to). With much difficulty (I wasn't designed to swim evidently...) I went... Nowhere. They all easily caught up with me with my sloth's pace in water. Actually, no. I was slower than a sloth. In fact, they didn't have to even catch me. I mean, an oxygen tank was holding me down as well and after all, they're fish.

“Umm... Doctor? What are you doing?” a fish that was an unnatural shade of purple asked.

“Er... I'm... SHUFFLING!” I said in a panicked voice.

Then, I began to... shuffle. It was mortifying. I mean, I'm not some professional critic, but I must say, I cannot dance. However, the the swiveling sea-dwellers didn't know this. I expected confused looks. Instead, they began their own dance as well; THEY WERE SHUFFLING.

I felt a warm feeling. I was a trend setter. Their natural dancing abilities astounded me. I didn't give them any instruction. They just... danced. What was more surprising was how good I was at dancing underwater. It all happened so quickly- within moments. I barely remember what happened next (I WASN'T under the influence), but it went until the day's end (a long time considering it started at 9am).

I have no idea what happened to that upset-looking green fish I was operating on, but I didn't really care. At some point, I managed to leave inconspicuously, but somthing occurred to me as I left. I could dance: I had just taught some fish how to shuffle.