Dream + Fish

What I saw in the bowl was unexpected to say the least. Goldfish swimming. Small and large, tiny little tadpole like bodies, and some as plump as a tennis ball darting around. Their colors were a deep black spotted with bits of amber brown as if you were viewing their bright colors through the lens of sunglasses. Thankfully I caught sight of a large one just before I flushed. I removed the top of the tank to see if the school of fish had somehow swam up the piping. The inside of the tank was crowded with more goldfish. The only other option, if they hadn’t come up from the pipes, was they came out of my body. I had just relieved myself and that was the only other possible option. Upon closer inspection there was no defecation in the bowl at all. My mind jumped to my last meal. A homemade soup from my wife, vegetable based with big chunky garlic crouton’s she’d made herself. Before that a standard burrito. Had I had this school of stool fish floating inside me for some time? The jump in logic that the fish could somehow adapt to survive inside the intestines is… not too large honestly. A splash echoed up the sides of the bowl. But what am I to do with them now? So I decided to excavate them. One by one, slowly, starting with the largest fish I scooped them out with a slated spoon and dropped them into a salad bowl filled with fresh water. Plop plop plop they dropped in and continued to aimlessly swim. I named them at first. You will be Harry, you will be Jean. Quickly it was clear there were too many to name and Harry blended away with the rest. After an hour, several salad bowls filled with water and a good rise of my spoon, I bid adieu to the stragglers left in the tank. Good luck friends, I whispered, how unexpected our meeting. Now with four large full salad bowls of fish I needed to find another solution. In the bowls they swam in unison, lap after lap, but in sync even from bowl to bowl. A quirk of nature perhaps the circle of black became quite hypnotizing. then I snapped back into the kitchen noticing a small bit of debris in the center of each bowl. Twirling a spinning there were black flecks. In the current the fish were shedding. I chose to let them be and to carry on with my day, following back to my original plan I ad after using the restroom. Once an hour I’d pop back through the kitchen and take a look, still swimming, still shedding, round and round and round. After hour six nearly all the black and brown of their bodies rested at the bottom of the bowls. Their scales now shone a miraculous gold. Not orange but a glimmering radiant gold like that of a lost artifact being dusted off for the sun to find. Light danced over the edges of a bowl as if a rainbow were going to erupt and connect to the four bowls in the kitchen. Had these fish really been living inside me? What was I going to tell my wife about her soup when she returned home? Once their black layer was shed, the fish became leisurely, floating still, side to side. They still however stayed aligned and in sync. All facing the same direction, even across the different bowls they all faced the same end of the kitchen. The end of the kitchen where I stood. Enough was enough and my wife would be home soon, we could take these fish somewhere out of this kitchen and make them someone else’s issue (probably without mentioning they appeared from a bowel movement). I threw my hands up in decision and left the kitchen for the living room. As I traveled from the edge of the kitchen their orientation followed me and I froze. And they froze. These fish had a sense of knowing now in their bowls, they knew me, they must. I approached the nearest bowl, my eyes adjusting to the gold glare, and saw them blubbing their weird little mouths, sending out invisible smoke rings. Our eyes met and for a second I locked into a single fish, Harry maybe, and my impulse took over. I reached quickly into the bowl, my hand snatched up the fish, and in half a second I had swallowed it. I didn’t notice. I had to process. The salad bowls erupted, gold strikes shooting left and right in the bowls like the ocean were boiling. Light danced across the kitchen ceiling as if a night club was almost ready to close. I could feel the sense of joy and went back to the bowl. I found another fish floating still amidst all the commotion, and down it went. My wife would be home in forty minutes and I already knew I needed an excuse for the four dirty salad bowls.