They’re tying the nets wrong. Again. Sloppy work, all float and no weight. I watch from the reef, teeth bared in the foam, as their hooks snagg coral and nothing else. Their boat rocks with matched arrogance, too shallow for fish, too loud for ghosts. Men like that don’t really fish. They take. The tall one spits a guava seed into the sea. I catch it on my tongue. They don’t see me. They never do, not until the red starts blooming. Not until the smile, wide as a sandbar, comes crawling up out the waves with the body it belongs to. Not until the net pulls back empty, and they hear the first scream from the hull and know it was never theirs to cast. Men used to ask for our siren songs. Now they ask if we’re real. Real enough to kill them.

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