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Memory of a Goldfish

This tank isn't big enough for the three of us.

By Max RussellPublished about a year ago 13 min read
7
DALL.E 2 Image Generated by Max Russell

“Welcome to the tank, friend! Let me give you a tour. We got a castle over there. There’s our mountain in the corner. It’s beyond the patch of plastic leaves, but don’t…”

I interrupted him, “Can I stop you there, Goldie?”

“How’d you know my name?”

“We’ve been through eight tank cleanings together.”

“Oh, my. I’m sorry to have to put you through that. So, every day, I repeat myself.”

“Multiple times a day. If you don’t mind, I’m trying to pay attention to the Hand that Feeds.”

There were two gods in our life—the Hand that Feeds and the Hand that Cleans. My old partner Frankie believed that both Hands were the same, and I entertained her odd notions since we only had each other.

The Hand that Feeds lowered a clear plastic bag filled with more water. It floated along the surface as a shadow circled its confines.

“Why’s he in a bag?” Goldie asked. He swam upwards toward the surface, and I strolled after him.

“I think it’s an initiation ritual. Frankie thought it had more to do with acclimating the different water temperatures, but we agreed to disagree on that one.”

“Who’s Frankie? Is that Frankie?” Goldie asked, stopping his upward swim and circling me with the energy of a much younger fish.

“I’d rather not get into that conversation right now.”

Goldie followed my eyesight toward the trapped fish bobbing in a clear bag. He asked, “Why’s that fish in a bag?”

“Let’s find out.”

The newcomer’s tall spine rose high over his neck like the algae-covered boulders at the corner of the tank. His flat face looked as if he liked bashing headfirst into walls. Meanwhile, his scales shined a sharp and elegant blue with streaks of purple trailing near his tail. I remembered being that bright. Frankie and I used to shine like rubies. Since then, my brilliant scales flaked off, and dull successors replaced them.

“Welcome to the tank…” Goldie began.

“He can’t hear us in the bag. Give it time. The Hand that Feeds will return.”

I circled the bag as the sun grew dim and the lightbulb above the countertop turned on with a flash. There wasn’t much else to do but revolve around our newest neighbor, who swam in even tighter circles within his buoyant bag. Goldie rambled about our manicured landscape while I considered how small it was. Our little aquarium was the perfect size when it was just Frankie and me. Goldie’s forgetfulness made it feel a bit crowded. With a third fish, especially one as big as the newcomer, I realized how tightly packed our confines were.

Eventually, the Hand returned and cut the bag. The newcomer rightened himself and swam directly to the castle at the center of the tank. His broad tail sent ripples behind him, and Goldie and I drifted to opposing sides of his wake to keep up.

“Welcome to the tank, friend! Let me give you a tour. We got a castle over there. There’s our mountain in the corner. It’s beyond the patch of plastic leaves, but don’t climb to the top. Lest you want to lose a fin.”

Our new neighbor kept swimming toward the mouth of the castle. He peered back and veered onto Goldie’s path. “Thank you for the advice. Let me return the favor. That is my castle now. Stay clear, and we won’t have any issues.”

“But that’s my castle,” Goldie said while inching away.

“I’m a bigger fish, and I have bigger needs. Deal with it, or I will deal with you.”

The newcomer swooped into the wide-open entrance by the castle’s drawbridge. He surveyed the interior before brushing his chin against the pebble floor and shoveling Goldie’s carefully curated stones outside.

“I see you’re a fan of landscaping. What if we take this project over to your place?” Goldie had a nervous tremor in his voice, but he still acted with the benefit of the doubt without knowing what was going on.

“Didn’t you hear me?” The new fish stopped digging and pressed his flat face against Goldie.

I interjected. “He doesn’t remember. He’s got about two seconds of memory before, poof, in one ear and out the other.”

“What’s your name, old timer?” He asked, swimming towards me and leaving Goldie, who was in the middle of introducing himself yet again.

“Frank. I’ve been living with Goldie for a while now. If you repeat an activity long enough, he’ll learn the habit. Just remind him to stay clear, and eventually, he’ll stop bothering you. Although he will keep trying to give you a tour.”

“I’m Brutus. You seem to understand how this will go down, so listen up because I hate repeating myself. If Goldie doesn’t remember, I want you to remind him.”

Brutus swam toward the glass edge surrounding our aquarium. The castle was the central feature of our confined habitat and the only comfortable place to rest. The tall leaves of our forest were too dense and pricky to lean against. Meanwhile, the mountain tucked into the back corner always had two strong currents. One that pushed and another that pulled. Little bits of debris floated up, and clean water poured forth. Frankie called it a filter, and I followed suit because I didn’t have a better name for it.

I directed Goldie towards the pebble lawn, although Brutus was still in view from the corner of my eye. The large blue fish was pecking at the forest and dusting his scales against the rigid plastic. He turned to keep track of us every few seconds, with Goldie none the wiser.

I clasped fins with Goldie. “I want to tell you a story. When you first arrived, you didn’t want to sleep in the castle. You wanted to wedge yourself near the top of the mountain.”

“That’d be no good. It’s dangerous up there. You could lose a fin.”

“I’m the one who taught you that. I repeated myself every day and dragged you over to the castle, over and over again.”

“That must have been exhausting.”

“I’m tired just thinking about it. Eventually, you picked up the habit and even added it to the tour you try to give me every day.”

“Speaking of a tour, do you want to see the castle? It’s right over there.” Goldie’s tail wagged in the direction of his distracted attention.

I pulled him back and held tight to his fins. “The castle is dangerous. Brutus will eat us. Now say it.”

“Brutus is dangerous, and the castle will eat us.”

“That’s a good start.” It was a relief he had remembered as much as he had.

Together Goldie and I shifted the colorful pebbles beneath us into little mounds we might be able to rest on. I figured my typical perch alongside the castle towers was now part of Brutus’s claimed territory, leaving Goldie and me with nothing but our tailfins to rest on.

Goldie wandered off, and I chased after him. I didn’t have the energy to scold him, so I coaxed him back to the lawn to continue our project. Eventually, Goldie grew too tired to remember his cozy castle. He nestled into the divot we excavated and slept. I peered over at the castle, and Brutus’s open eyes reflected the countertop lights as he looked back at me. I stayed awake since I feared Goldie waking up during the night.

In the morning, Goldie shook the aches off his body as he fluttered off the pile of stones. “Welcome to the tank, friend. Do you mind telling me why we’re sleeping outside?”

“My old partner Frankie used to think our whole aquarium is technically inside. Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring her up. I didn’t get any sleep last night, and I’m tired.”

“No worries, she sounds fun to talk with.”

“She was my other half for all my life, and then one day, she floated to the surface belly up. It’s been hard for me since she passed.” I usually wouldn’t reveal as much, but my exhaustion and fear loosened the lid on all the feelings I kept bottled up.

“How’d you get over something like that?” Goldie reached over a fin and gently patted my shoulder.

“The Hand that Feeds dropped you off soon after. You couldn’t even remember my name. I felt alone, then I got angry, and you were the only one I could take my grief out on. I called you names and bumped into you needlessly, but you forgave me every day. You got these big eyes I can see myself in, and you helped me see that I was turning into someone Frankie wouldn’t recognize.”

“Frankie and me both. Who are you again?” Goldie asked.

“Just forget about it,” I said while nestling into the pebble mound.

DALL.E 2 Image Generated by Max Russell

In my dreams, I talked Frankie’s ears off about every feeding and tank cleaning. She was the one I would always circle back to theorize about the reliable sunrises and the unexpected replacements of the lightbulbs above. In our little world, she was a never-ending well of exciting discussions. I grasped for that sense of normalcy again, but Frankie couldn’t talk back to me in my dreams. She looked amused by my rambling, so I never stopped talking.

Without her, I stopped caring when the Hand that Feeds came around to drop off food flakes. Why question the intentions of the Hands if I had no one to talk about them with? I stopped looking outside the tank and only focused on a castle she was no longer inside.

It was Goldie who pulled me over to the plastic leaves for a much-needed scale scratching. I was looking more and more like the algae-covered boulders, with layers of dead scales and food crumbs coating my body. Despite my daily attempts to rebuff him, I eventually realized the easiest way to get him to stop asking was to take his advice and clean myself up.

I shook myself awake and wobbled back and forth to get the cricks out. I looked for Goldie and saw him huddled near the top of the mountain.

I dashed through the tank and swam over the tall leaves near the water’s surface. Goldie was curled in on himself and quivering under the filter. He hid his wound, but he was missing a fin.

“What happened?” I peered close to assess the damage. His core was still intact, but his fin was torn roughly from the rest of his body.

“I don’t know.”

“Did you get too close to the castle or the mountain?” I asked.

“I don’t know! I know not to go too close to the pulling stream up here, but maybe, I don’t know. Maybe I messed up.”

“I know you didn’t mess up, Goldie. If the filter hurt you, you wouldn’t sit near it at the top of the mountain. You came up here fleeing from Brutus.”

“Who’s Brutus?”

I nodded my nose towards his missing fin. “That’s Brutus. Say it.”

“The brute tore my fin.”

“It’s going to be okay. I promise you. We’re going to get our castle back too.” I nestled my chin against Goldie’s back.

“How? There’s a brute in there.”

“You can forget about him. I’m going to take care of it.” I looked up at the filter, and as much as it would hurt, I knew what I needed to do.

I wobbled unevenly towards the castle with Goldie in tow. Brutus saw my path and raced across the drawbridge to meet me. He stuck his flat face by mine. I slowed down, barely a lip away from brushing against him. If I glided any further forward, he would probably bite, and if I retreated, he’d continue to chase me off. I hovered in place, terrified that my heart might burst from fear but brave enough to stand there anyway.

Brutus slowly swam in an arch around me, always hovering higher in the water than me. He didn’t say a word, simply glared as he assessed which corner of mine might be the best to bite.

“You hurt Goldie,” I said.

“That was a warning. Next time, I’ll tear off more than fin.”

“There’s nothing I can do to get you to back off. But there are scarier things than you,” I said, struggling to spin fast enough to keep Brutus in front of me.

“Yeah. What’s that?” He growled, ready to pounce.

“The Hands that Feed and Clean. They drop us in the aquarium and are the only ones who can take us out.”

“You think you can summon the Holy Hands?” Brutus grinned with a mouth full of teeth. Within his incisors, an orange-gold fin was waving in his cruel smile.

“There’s one too many fish in this tank. Now two of them are injured. What do you think the Hands will do to the big new predator messing up their aquarium?”

“Two injured fish? I never touched you,” he said gruffly.

“No, but I got careless at the top of the mountain.”

I spun the other way to expose the torn fin I stuck in the filter. Frankie always thought the filter was strong enough to hurt, and after years of worrying, I finally put her theory to the test. It took me a while to work up the courage to stick my fin up the tube, and I wavered at the decision while Goldie repeatedly warned me about the danger.

In the end, Goldie’s insistent efforts to talk me out of it convinced me how necessary it was to save him. It would be so much easier to do nothing, but then I would lose the positivity Goldie brought to every day. If I let nature play out with the bigger bully prevailing, I would be alone with Brutus, who promised nothing more than the same threat each day.

The upstream filter took longer than I imagined tearing off my fin. I lay stuck against the bottom of the plastic tube as I wriggled back and forth. The inner edges pulled against my transparent skin and the even thinner fin bones underneath. Goldie swooped in and bumped his face against my back to dislodge me. The added pressure formed a tear, and the rest of my fin gave way with an upward twist.

“It’s time for you to go, Brutus,” I said.

“You set me up!” Brutus yelled as he lunged.

I darted away, but not nearly fast enough with only one fin. His teeth dug into one of my eyes and plucked it clean off. The pain was worse than losing a fin, and he cast half my vision in darkness. I knew it was dangerous to confront Brutus, but I had never fought another fish in all my life. His savagery taught me how little I knew of the outside world.

The top of the tank lifted. The bright, yellow-gloved Hand that Cleans dove under the water with a small net clasped in its grasp. Brutus made another jab at my mouth, but the Hand that Cleans swung the net between us. Brutus’s body stuck to the bottom of the net as the Hand swept him away. I watched him go, and the top of the aquarium closed once more.

Goldie ducked out from behind the castle. He swam around to my blind side and rested against me. He asked, “Are you okay? Who was that monster?”

“No one worth remembering. Would you mind if I rested at your castle?” We leaned against one another, and with two good fins between us, we swam towards our home.

“Of course, friend. Remind me to give you the tour later.”

Fable
7

About the Creator

Max Russell

Storyteller, Writer, & Editor 🖋

Dungeon master and D&D player 🧙🏻‍♂️

Somewhat okay at chess ♘♝♖

Reader insights

Outstanding

Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!

Top insights

  1. Compelling and original writing

    Creative use of language & vocab

  2. Excellent storytelling

    Original narrative & well developed characters

  3. Eye opening

    Niche topic & fresh perspectives

  1. Heartfelt and relatable

    The story invoked strong personal emotions

  2. On-point and relevant

    Writing reflected the title & theme

Add your insights

Comments (11)

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  • U.Rdiyaabout a year ago

    Beautifully written. Loved it!

  • Stephanie Downardabout a year ago

    I loved your take on this challenge. You did an awesome job! Great development throughout the whole story! I'm so glad clever thinking got Brutus out of the tank!

  • Colleen Millsteed about a year ago

    Wow I was riveted to each word. This needs to be made into a children's book.

  • Dana Stewartabout a year ago

    I loved your delightful story! Fins unite! ❤️

  • Alex H Mittelman about a year ago

    Awesome! Good writing

  • Hannah Mooreabout a year ago

    I loved how Goldie's memory creates a character who is guilelessly good, and how that wins a grieving heart. It reminded me of the relationship we have we our dogs sometimes.

  • Alina Zabout a year ago

    There's a lot of suspense in this little tank! I loved how Frank's heroism complements Goldie's good–and easily forgotten–intentions. Loved your characters and as usual, the action. Read if a few times!

  • Sara Jane Triglia about a year ago

    Reminds me of Dory from Finding Nemo and sort of the relationship in Of Mice and Men. Poor fish. Did he make it?

  • Heather Hublerabout a year ago

    This was truly fantastic! You had really strong characterization, and I was rooting for the two friends to triumph! Excellent work :)

  • Testabout a year ago

    This is absolutely masterful. Goldie is such a wholesome and fun character, and Frank was so well developed in such a short time. This absolutely has to be a contender.

  • Savannah Svetaabout a year ago

    I so enjoyed this story. Fun, quirky characters, a healthy amount of angst, and a heartwarming conclusion - it was a great read!! I wouldn't be surprised if this one were a winner. Thank you for writing and sharing!

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