The Goldfish

He’s still swimming around in the aquarium, but it doesn’t feel the same anymore. He goes back and forth, up to the surface and down to swim through the open doorway of a small ornamental castle; it’s just like it always was, and yet somehow completely different.

I used to spend days watching him. Days that could, probably, have been spent doing something more productive. But it never felt like wasted time; his shimmering scales seemed to hypnotise as he explored every inch of his small domain, and time would pass quickly, more quickly than it had any right to.

Then, one day, it happened. He turned to look directly at me. With eyes on the side of his head, this shouldn’t have been possible, but somehow he fixed me fully with a stare that seemed to say “what now?”, that seemed to say “who ARE you?”, that seemed to say “THIS ENDS HERE”.

And it did end there. I slumped to the floor, dejected. Staring into the aquarium never really satisfied after that – I would quickly become bored and irritable, and begin scratching at my stomach. I stopped feeding him after a few weeks, tried to convince myself that I had forgotten. This wasn’t murder, it was just absent-mindedness. Deliberate absent mindedness.

It was no good, though. Despite my underhanded attempts to end his life, he keeps on swimming. And I could swear that he’s growing larger.