"Goldfish, Dying!" (a short fish story)

[1958]




It is forenoon, the summer of the 1958. My mother just went down stairs, she says, “I won’t be long, I got to wash a few cloths.”

I’m at the sink, cleaning out my fishbowl. Grandpa is outside, trimming the lilac bushes; my brother is someplace with his new go-cart. As I was about to say, I’m cleaning the glass of the fish bowel in the kitchen, that is, taking the rocks out: replacing the water, cleaning the rocks, and I looking at my goldfish (I’m eleven years old); I remain standing at the sink in the kitchen, I think I’m thinking how am I going to get this fish from here to there, I think I am doing too much thinking.
Now I got everything ready: the new water, the rocks are back into the bowel, and I’m—I’m about to put my goldfish back into the bowl, and I’m thinking, and I learned from this episode in life, not to think too hard, you can get paralyzed, and I am thinking how to get goldfish from here to there: slowly I pick it up, pickup my glass with the fish in it—the goldfish, my intentions are to drop the fish in the rounded top (the hole) of the bowel—and I know I got to be quick—especially coordinated; I will have once chance, only one chanced, but I’m ready, so I tell myself. I’m already to pour the fish back into its home: yes I say again to myself: I got to do it hurriedly, but the fish is feisty very lively today (perhaps overfed them him yesterday, so I think, there are two of them, I have two quick witted fish, I think they are quicker than me anyhow, and I get the notion they do not like the environment right now they are in, and they are in this glass, not very big at all, I suppose to them it is no bigger than a closet, compared to the home I took them out of.
so I raise the glass up and as I start to pour the water into the glass, with the fish in it, into the glass bowel, with the fish, the hole of the bowel looking at me, the glass I took my eyes off of for a second, just a second, and my eyes seem like they are not adjusting perfectly, it hits the rim, the rim of the glass bowel and the fish fall head first (both) into he sink, and I panic, I’m panicking, hyperventilating, and I rush, rush, rush to save my goldfish, fingers all over the place, and they are squirming, sliding out of my hands, they are going to die, I know it now, death is lingering over and I’m responsible: I’m in a terror, fright, alarm…god, what can I do…?
do…do…do

I scream: “Mom…mom…my fi…as...fa…s…help!!”

My mother comes running up the stairs, thinking there is a tornado, or earthquake about to take place. Her face is not calm, and sullen, her eyes are brooding and alert—alarmed (here adrenaline has kicked in to high gear) within them I can see trouble for me: her expression is sudden, intent and concerned. My eyes are like marbles, the fish is in the sink wiggling all about, it might go down into the drain (I tell myself): I trip over my tongue, my words stutter out slowly: everything is upside down in my head, words coming out but saying only “fi…as…fa…s…help!”
I look at her and the fish: her and the fish: her and the fish “Calm down, “she says, then looks in the sink, says:
“Fish…all this over fish…? What’s the matter with you, I thought you were dying!”
She looks in the sink again, at me, at the fish in the sink, at me, grabs the fish, puts them into the fish bowel, one grab, two fish, so easy, too easy I say to myself, adding: now why could I not do that?
“Explain to me what is the emergency for you to be screaming so loud (she hesitates) the fish?” she asks staring into my marble eyes, with her sudden, intent and lack of concern for my fish (knowing there is really no emergency).
She of course knows it’s the fish, and I overreacted, but I was never one for under-reacting, at least in those early days, I think she knew this, and simply asked for an explanation, not sure why because she knew at this point what had taken place, perhaps to calm me down.
“I couldn’t get the fish…it was, was, was...go,gooo…ing to go down the drain, I thought I was ga-going to kill it, I mean, it was going to die in the drain…I got…I couldn’t get it, it, it…thought it would stop breathing...!”
“Do you want me to have a heart attack?” she says to me now, with a civil voice: no more concern, no more anger, just a sigh of relief, and a time for explaining.
“Does not call me up those stairs again to save another fish, next time…just make sure there is no next time, ok? Pickup the bowl, and put it where it belongs!”
“Yes,” I said, my tongued still a little tied, from the panic; now looking at my goldfish swimming around safely in my fish bowel, and my mother walking down the steps.

If you are asking, ‘Was it worth it—‘yes, I think so—but I’d never tell my mother that, but I’m sorry I caused her to think the worse had taken placed. She was protective in her own way, and perhaps came to fight a whale, and found out it was a goldfish, but that is part of being a parent, and I was a kid, leaning, and she was teaching, that’s how it works on this planet.

Written 9-2005 (No: 1)