A fishy murder?
By Cherry Kao
“Despite all his efforts, the knight failed to save the princess from the evil witch, and he lived in misery ever after. The end.”
–
It was a calm Saturday, and 9 year old me was lying on the couch reading a fairytale book my mom had obtained through her relatives. Sitting on the windowsill desk, the sun blazing, the fish tank hummed softly with the led lights and oxygen pump.
The water reflected sunlight like a shiny diamond, the radiant, colourful pebbles inside shining rainbows and prismatic beams as if a stage for my one and only beloved goldfish. It traversed gracefully amongst the multicoloured light rays in the water, dancing to the ripples of the oxygen pump, its long tail shimmering under the lights and every delicate scale on its body glimmering in contact with the sunlight, now fierce and bright at noon.
I could stare at its bubbly clueless eyes for hours - oh how sad it couldn’t realize how beautiful its own soul was, constantly pirouetting to the silent music of nature.
Bursting my daydream, my dad strided out of the toilet, wearing his white T-shirt with countless stains from over the years of wine and green shorts. He masked a devious grin under a poker face, hinting he planned to commit something “evil”. He took out a large bucket, a red water pump and grunted, his voice laced with mischief,
“The fish tank is musty. It’s time to change the water into cleaner, disinfected water.”
Oh no.
Every time that happened, my fish would nearly suffocate to death since my dad would drain all the water until the very last drop, leaving the tank bone dry.
I glanced at the fish. A sudden flap of its long tail sent a cloud of green algae swirling around the water, as if my fish poofed away in thin air.
I watched my dad’s hand squeeze the red rubber balloon connected to the pump. My heart squirmed with every pump, and I watched in utter horror, palms sweating, as the water drained from the tank like a timed bomb that could blast my fish into pieces anytime. My breath was accelerating rapidly and I had to do something, at least stop him. If I didn’t, my fish would suffer even worse. I hated how vulnerable and childish my panic responses made me.
Without a single drop of water left in the tank, my fish gobbled for air frantically. I could see the blood vessels in its eyeballs as it struggled to even move, tail slapping against pebbles in desperacy.
Fight, fight, fight! You’ve been through this many times and you can make it!
Just then, my dad emerged from the washroom again, but this time, his hands were empty and instead appeared as if he was ready to drop everything and head outside.
“Come on! Get ready to go eat lunch outside!”
He couldn’t. He couldn’t have possibly done so. He suddenly decided to have lunch…even when that meant my fish would suffocate till death without new water.
I clawed hysterically at his leg, yanking his arm so he would take notice of me. He frowned and practically yanked me out of the house door. The rest of my family followed, taking no notice of my suffering fish and giggling at jokes. My parents simply dismissed my anger as “pubertal mood swings”. How could they have possibly laughed at such a moment, when one precious life was fading away?
–
I practically dashed home after lunch, dragging both my parents with me and bolting for my life (or rather, my fish’s life). I almost broke the door when I got back, toppling over onto my carpet. My eye caught a gruesome sight that scarred me in an instant.
My precious, dearest goldfish, my pride and joy… lay on the pebbles, inside a deserted tank, belly facing the sky, eyeballs rolled to the back of its head… pale, limp, lifeless.
A pang struck me as I catapulted around my living room, the furniture warping and melting as I slammed against the distorted walls. Colours bursted all around me. I thought of my fish inside the tank, helpless as its heartbeat slowed and its breath shallowing, its peripheral vision fading away as it let its body drown in pain and disbelief. Out of the corner of its eye, black silhouettes of my dad emerged everywhere, the floors, the walls, as they guffawed laughter of sinisterness.
Wake up! Now isn’t the time to back up!
I jerked up from my trance of oxygen deprivation, disoriented and nauseous as my vision recovered and I saw my dad staring into my eyes.
“You despiseful murderer… What did you do to my fish…” I probably looked like a survivor from 99 nights in the desert begging him for water. I begged for an apology. I was expecting an hour-long explanation on why he assassinated my fish. His answer knocked my socks off.
“I forgot to transfer new water. Haha, too bad.”
That very second, something ominous and powerful expanded inside me, a dominant surge of energy I never expected to have. I gritted my teeth, ready to change my impression for the avenge of a pure innocent life that a maniac had sacrificed purely for his own enjoyment, the termination of what he wrongly accused as a pest.
“USELESS DEGENERATE!!!”
–
That afternoon, my dad agreed to make a burial for my fish. As the two of us strolled along the seaside to the beach, the sun set little by little, symbolizing the inching of time that led to the conclusion of slowly but surely forgetting your loved ones once they have passed away.
To this day, I still dream of my fish sometimes. I made a realization upon my dad’s gory personality that was only revealed to family, like a veil of “kindness” and “care” masking a sin. Maybe that’s life, not everybody acts like the glittering heavenly fairytales that sugarcoat reality with romance and “happy endings”.