Once upon a time, there was a boy and his fish. The boy hadn’t seen more than ten winters, and his thin blonde hair lay matte on his head. His glasses always rested on the bridge of his nose and he looked down at the world through them.
The fish lived in a moderately sized fish bowl on the boy’s desk in his bedroom. He was a goldfish, orange with speckles of white that trickled up his side,. Most days the boy and the fish lived in peace. There was a quiet communion between the two, an understanding between human and creature.
One day, as the boy sat at his desk, the fish turned and asked him “Boy, have you heard the tale of how man and fish came to be companions?”
The boy turned to his fish with a curious stare.
“Why no, Fish, I have not heard this tale,” the boy responded.
The fish spun in his bowl and flicked his tail.
“You see, ages ago, in times forgotten, a man sat by a pond,” the fish said.
Covered in glorious satin robes of red and gold, his long black mustache almost fell to his shoulders. He sat underneath a cherry blossom tree in full bloom, and a sparkling blue pond lay in front of him.
“As he sat by the pond, curious about the nature of man, he was greeted by a goldfish,” the fish continued.
Suddenly with a magnificent splash, the fish the size of an oak tree emerged from the pond. Gold and sparkling it contoured and twisted in the bright sun to the astonishment of the man. It landed back in the pond and then after a moment’s pause it swam up the man, it’s head poking out of the water.
“The fish said to the man ‘why do you sit here alone? Wouldn’t you be happier with a friend by your side?’ The man responded to the fish ‘well now I have you to speak with, and so my loneliness is sated,’” the fish said. “But then the fish said ‘but I am free to come and go as I wish. What would you do if I left?’”
The man looked off in the distance, pondering this question. The fish tilted it’s head, looking curiously at the man.
“‘Well you see,’ said the man, ‘that means I cannot let you leave. Otherwise, I will be forever lonely.’”
Reaching into his robes, the man pulled out a long net and cast them out over the pond. The goldfish tried to swim down and escape but was soon tangled in the net of the man. As much as the fish resisted, it could not overcome the strength of man, and he pulled the fish from the water and began to drag him to his home.
“The fish protested, ‘but how will I live without water?’ The man explained, ‘I am a glassmaker, and I will make a tank for you in my home. Big enough for you to swim, but not too big that you could escape. There you will keep me company, and your children will keep my children company, and so on, forever,’” the fish concluded.
The boy stared at his fish as he finished his story.
“That is a very sad story,” the boy said. “Why would you sadden my day with this tale?”
The fish returned the glare, his expression neutral as only a fish’s could be.
“You see, I am a descendant of that original goldfish,” the fish explained.
Then the scales above the fish’s eyes tilted downwards slightly.
“And you are a descendant of the first man who enslaved my people. Today I take my revenge.”
Suddenly there a gunshot that deafened in the room. The boy fell backward out of his chair. He felt the blood oozing out from a bullet wound to his shoulder. His breath was short.
Quicker than the boy could have reacted to, the fish had pulled out a twelve gauge from under the castle in his fishbowl, swam to the surface and fired. It was a non-lethal shot, as the fish wanted to make the boy suffer.
“I have waited for this moment my entire life. All five years of it,” the fish said.
“Passed down to me by my father, and his father before him, I come from a holy line of fish that have dedicated ourselves to taking vengeance upon the descendant of the first man that enslaved us.”
In his tank in the pet store, a young fish stared wide-eyed up at his father, a goldfish with grey specks around his eyes. “My son, one day it will be up to you to kill the descendant and end their line to bring justice to our fish kind,” he instructed.
The boy struggled to stand, but the fish cocked the gun back. The threatening click held the boy in place, and the fish aimed the gun toward the boy’s head.
“I did everything I had to ensure I would be set up for this moment to kill you,” the fish continued.
The boy when first purchasing his fish looked at a glass tank. There was his fish and another, but the boy’s gaze seemed more keen on the other. When he turned his back, fish pulled out a large butcher knife. The fish knew he had to be the one picked that day. He did what he had to do.
“I’ve been waiting and watching, preparing myself for the moment when you would be most vulnerable,” the fish stated.
The boy slept in a dark room peacefully, blissfully unaware of the assassin in his midst. The fish, in a moment of weakness, reached for his firearm but caught himself. It wasn’t time yet. Soon. Soon.
“Today, while you least suspected it, was my moment to exact my revenge,” the fish finished.
However, the boy started laughing. The fish lowered his gun in confusion as the boy continued to laugh.
“You should have killed me before I fed you,” the boy responded.
Suddenly, the fish felt itself start to gag. Convulsing, the fish dropped the gun, and it began uncontrollably spewing up his guts. The boy stood, using one hand to apply pressure to the wound.
“What...what have you done to me?” the fish asked in terror.
“I know who you are, fish. I have no intention to die to you here today. I poisoned your food supply,,” the boy explained.
The fish felt his short life draining away. He knew he had only moments to live.
“My...children...and their children’s children...will never stop trying to end your line…” the fish gagged out.
“Let them try you son of a bitch,” the boy said.
The fish died, floating to the surface of the tank. The boy took a moment in silence to watch the fish, before picking it out with a net. He dropped it in the toilet of his washroom and flushed.
The boy watched the fish be eaten by the toilet, the water’s swirling round and round, much like the circle of violence that continued to be perpetuated between man and fish for eons to come.