Strange Horizons, January 2026
Lúcio is a goldfish with human vocal cords, created by the Lifemaker as a simple project during a period of estrangement from his sister Olga. He lives in an elaborate aquarium system that extends throughout a mansion floating in space, watching schools of fish swim past the windows. Lúcio is particularly drawn to the Guide, an anglerfish whose blinking light represents the promise of unexplored paths.
The Lifemaker creates hybrid creatures for the Whale, a massive being who tastes and transports his creations to other realms. When the Whale criticizes his latest work, Cantala, as “derivative,” the Lifemaker retaliates with a trap that injures her. Angry, she threatens to never return unless he finishes the Kid—a perpetually unfinished project the Lifemaker has been reshaping for years.
The Kid has existed in countless forms: as a boy, a girl, with wings, with various limbs and heads. Currently, he has an anglerfish head with sharp teeth and a weak light, one arm, and extra fingers growing from his shoulder. Lúcio finds the Kid unpleasant and avoids him, considering him an insult to the Guide’s dignity.
As the Lifemaker works on the Kid, Lúcio discovers a connection with him through drawing shapes on the fogged aquarium glass. Their silent conversations through these drawings create an unexpected bond. Lúcio guides the Kid’s finger to draw spirals and other shapes, finding meaning in their shared creativity. When Olga sees Lúcio’s drawing of the Guide, she recognizes his longing for freedom, which fills Lúcio with shame at having revealed his deepest desires.
In his embarrassment and pettiness, Lúcio tells the Lifemaker that his new design for the Kid’s face looks “odd” and derivative of Cantala. The Lifemaker, devastated, destroys the mold. He reveals that he created Lúcio for conversation during his loneliness, making Lúcio understand that all the Lifemaker’s creations carry “fingerprints”—traces of their creator’s pain, loneliness, and longing that can never truly be hidden.
This realization transforms Lúcio. He begins demanding to leave with the Kid, following the Lifemaker everywhere, refusing to stay silent. He and the Kid cover the mansion’s glass walls with drawings, no longer hiding their desires. When the Whale arrives, the Lifemaker finally agrees to let Lúcio go.
Lúcio swims free into space, tasting the Whale’s tongue before watching the Kid walk into her mouth and disappear to new worlds. Then Lúcio joins the shoal of fish he’s watched for so long, swimming among giant carps, sardines, moonfish, and eels. He discovers a massive manta ray he’d never seen from his limited window view and realizes how much more exists beyond what he knew.
As he swims past other dwellings in space, he thinks of Olga and the Lifemaker, of the Kid’s small light making windows in the darkness, and of all the possibilities that await in the vast universe beyond the aquarium walls that once contained him.
Fernanda Coutinho Teixeira is a fiction writer born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She got her MFA in Fiction from University of Central Florida. She is an alumna of the Tin House Autumn Workshop and the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Her work has been featured in Strange Horizons, The Ex-Puritan, Foglifter, and elsewhere. You can find her at http://fernandacoutinhoteixeira.com/ and on Instagram, @fercoutinhotex.