Sunday, March 4, 2007

fishing for answers


I wonder what my fish sees as he comes upon his reflection in the glass.. himself or another fish?

I wish I could only find another simple fish in my reflection. Maybe then I wouldn't judge him so harshly for his simple minded quest: his need to feed his hunger for attention, his pitiful ability to recall only the last two-seconds past, or the way he finds that he is sinking more than he is swimming. Why is it only recently that he has realized that his home is a prism, his room a dark blue that he can't swim through. Why is he always the first fish you swim to his owner when he enters the room, in hpe of a flake of what he caves: soaked bits of attention, floating and sinking in the water, swallowed whole and returned whole, murkeying his own water, his own supply of life.
When his fish friend is dying, why is it that he is the first to pick him apart? The fish friend he... loved?
That's why I'm not a fish. My fish frind can come back alive after a tearful apology. My fish friend will only die if I let it.
But what about when I think he hates me? What about when he never wants to swim near me again because I keep swallowing those fish flakes of attention whole, only hoping for more and more... and please... please... those flakes... I need them. They tell me that I was chosen out of the pet store, picked out for my golden sparkle, better than the other fish, who only eat to survive, while I eat to grace my tank.
Why can't I eat to survive? Maybe I don't deseve it.
Why isn't this fish happy, satisfied with regular flakes of foo? He has rocks to hide behind when he's scared, and other fish, and a fish friend to chase. Oh- but he sees the top of the tank, the opening. He sees the deadly oxygen, and he wants to be in it, can't wait to be in it. His gills turn to lungs and he's breathing by the oxygen in the water... he wanted the air and his wants his fish friend to go with him.
Not ready yet. One day he'll be ready to escape his tank.