Death by Goldfish By Julia Wangler
An empty void is eating me alive. My mother tells me that it will merely be temporary, that I should easily be able to move onwards with my life. She says this just to cover up her own feelings about the situation. She has already had to mourn over my father suddenly leaving us, and now my brother who departed before hair could grace his pure chin. I cannot blame her for wanting all of her sadness to float away like a balloon from last year’s county fair, but I am not ready yet. “Sweetie, wanna go to the bakery? We can play a game and eat some cookies. Ooo, and drink some tea! You’ve been sitting inside all day now, come on, please.” This is but one of her many calls to steal my melancholy. Going places seems far too ignorant though. He just left us two months ago. I will stay in the comfort of the bare, auburn-walled home we call our own, wasting my hours away. Rather than accompany my mother on her pointless ventures, I sneak away to my brother’s closed-off room. I am not allowed to enter, but when my mother goes out, any obstacle in my way vanishes. His room is painted a sky-blue color that makes me feel as though I am stepping into a warm summer’s day. That warmth is the complete opposite of the truth. His scattered books and his beautiful, shimmering paintings are still laid out on the carpeted floor. His large windows with our initials sketched on the windowsills surround me. His butterfly hand will never again fly across a canvas or etch my name in his window. He is gone. His goldfish, however, is not gone. His goldfish was only supposed to survive a week after the county fair last year, but it is still alive. It swims around in its fishbowl, a neon orange reflecting back at me. Its eyes dart around its bowl frantically, constantly moving. Its energy balances out my own. I take the fish into my room. It will always have to be hidden from my mother’s view, but I must keep this living link to my brother close. The goldfish stops swimming when I place my hands on the clear fishbowl, adding to the collection of mess at the bottom. It is terrified. Terrified, just like I was. Once I set it down on my bathroom counter, the fish is able to calm down and resume its usual energetic swimming. I peer down at the fish. It brings me the most joy I have felt in two months to see the fish somehow
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