Dear reader,
First, you’re desperate.
I know you are.
That’s why you will buy that fish.
Because you became addicted to chance, to maybes, to gambling, to the point that you have lost everything. Now, you will try to make up for that.
You will have spent another day betting away what little you have.
You will have spent the night wasting away in a basement. Or was it a dorm room? It doesn’t much matter to you, both spaces have the same dingy lighting and heavy smell of desperation and broken dreams. Both have the same moldy sofa that looked like it was made of the skin of a very old horse; saggy, brown, and soft with downy hairs.
You will slump over, rest your elbows on your knees to catch your breath, overly whelmed by the entirety of everything. The money. The chance. You.
You will have called the chips and coins you’ve played, those little fish. You will have bet with those little fish and, and you will have joked that the little fish need to swim on home. But the joke will have died on your tongue in that dingy room, when you remember just how desperate you are.
Sad, isn’t it?
You will lose. Again. And then you will sink deeper into the sea that is you, and no number of lifeboats will be able to fish you out of this one. Truly a shame.
So, in your deep, sunken, waterlogged state, you will go to the market.
Oh, how you love the market, full of life, full of color, full of vigor and zest, something you have always wanted but could never quite grasp.
You will stand in front of the tall tank of fish. And you will watch the fish fly through the water. They will be gold, the brightest gold. They will catch your eye and you will be totally entranced.
“They are good luck.” The vender will tell you, in his strange old voice that creeks around the edges, crumbling into the night air. “And today’s a sale.”
You will listen. Of course you will listen. You will listen, and you will spend what little you have on a single goldfish, in a sandwich bag full of water. You wonder briefly if you are meant to eat the fish. But the thought flies out of your mind when it blinks it’s big black eyes up at you.
When you get home you are going to find it a little bowl that you will fill with tap water. You will adjust the faucet, so it is perfectly balanced between hot and cold, so it is perfect for your little fish.
Then, you will sit and watch the fish. Captivated. Entranced. You’re sure that there are synonyms for how you feel, yet all words, all thoughts leave your mind as you stare at your little fish.
The fish’s scales will be the most brilliant gold, lacing with dandelion and tangerine, shifting through different shades of sunshine as you watch. Your eyes will trace its movements. You will sit there perplexed by the little scales and how they will catch the light.
And you will sit there for the rest of the evening and into the wee hours of the night.
Next, you will wake up. Just like you do every day.
You will wake up and walk to your mirror and you will look at the violet bags that have sunken your eyes even deeper into your head. You will prod them gently, work the skin like playdough, attempt to mold it back into something more human. Yet, as it always does, it remains in its sullen state. And you will move on, then, just like that. Just like that, deformed and sunken. Nothing new.
Then you will make your way away.
You will sit through the college classes that your parents pay for. You will visit the store, purchase food that tastes like forgetting, drink that tastes like remembering. You will walk the streets, wonder where it all went wrong.
Then, you will go back to gambling. In basements, lifeless dorms, and halls that are filled with smoke that has always stung your lungs, stained them so that your pillow turns gray when your breath brushes it.
You will be unlucky. Again.
Then you will take the bus home. Again.
Cramped between two people with raincoats beaded with the moistness, the same moistness that will fill the evening air.
You will look blankly ahead of you. Or that is what you normally do. Where you would have, should have, seen a blank window with shapes that will move so fast your eyes won’t even bother to differentiate between them, you will instead see a double paned window full of water, with a little fish swimming around inside.
You will watch the little fish fly through those double panes of glass. Confused, amazed, bewildered.
“Excuse me,” you will touch the shoulder of the person beside you. She will look over at you, first in disgust, then in something deeper than that, worse than that; pity.
“But do you see that fish?”
She will blink at you once, twice, three times before replying; “what fish?”
Then, you will sit there.
“Are you sure?” you will ask. “Please, you must see it.”
The stranger will reach for her phone, and you will get off two stops too soon and you will walk home. You will rub your eyes and shake your head. But you will be sure that you saw that fish.
You will go to sleep as soon as you get home. It will be dreamless, unless you count deep darkness, deep nothingness as something. Maybe it is. It is what you exist in every day.
You will wake up and you will look at that fish. Your eyes will once again follow all its movements.
Then you will walk out of your home and look up into the morning and see the same buildings and same the windows that you see every morning.
Only this time you will see a little, gold, fish inside of each and every window. They will catch the light and glow so bright.
You will wander past though and find yourself on another bus with another fish in the window.
You won’t ask about it though. Instead, you stare at the person ahead of you.
Because the person ahead of your gazes’ eyes will have a tiny little fish swimming between both.
Next you will get of the bus and find yourself somewhere in the city. The buildings will loom over you, and you will feel so, so small.
You will walk into a coffee shop and order a large. When you get that large it will be in a thick white mug with a sturdy handle.
Inside that cup you will see a little fish swimming around, dancing through the coffee.
You will down the coffee, and the fish in one big gulp.
You will stand abruptly and drop what little change you have on the table and leave. You will get on another bus with windows now entirely full of fish and with strangers whose eyes are being swam through.
You will go back to your home, and you will see that little fish.
That little fish with the beautiful scales and the dandelion tangerine tail that swims around inside of its bowl. And you will think of how it looks just like what you have wished for. Luck and fortune.
Then, you will go to sleep again. And you will dream of nothing other than that little fish swimming inside of a little bowl.
And when you drag yourself out of your sheets and go to the bathroom, you will flick the lights on. You will look ahead of yourself. You will look directly into the reflection of your own eyes.
But you will see a fish. A big fish. A shimmering, shimming golden fish.
You will see that what you’ve become is all that you have ever wished for. You will see those dandelion and tangerine scales and bulbous black eyes.
You will see that you have become nothing but your little fish.
And you will cry.
Shedding tears so salty they form a sea in your washroom, you will cry.
Finally, you will wake up once more.
You will look besides you and instead of a little dandelion and tangerine fish flying through the water, you will see it floating at the top. Belly up.
You will flush it down the toilet and you will not shed any tears.
Instead, you will feel the few coins left in you pockets. And you will see the last of your luck has swirl down, down , down.
You will go outside. Because life goes on. It’s raining, and when you hold your tongue out to taste, you will realize it’s salty. Life goes on.
Unlucky, tragic life will continue.
You will wish it was you swirling down into the darkness. The water of the sewer is filthy, but at least it is fresh. No salt, no living little fish, you hope at least.
Your socks will soak through as you step into a puddle.
And you will look up at the sky.
And you will scream.
Makenna Raquel Self is a high school student from British Columbia, Canada.
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