Angela Price

The fish looked around him. It was all so blurred; the whole world had melted around him and his bubble in the last five seconds. He couldn’t remember before that, he never could, but he knew it was different then. He swam around the castle, the lovely pink castle that had sprung up in the last five seconds, the only solid thing…..

There was an eye like a dinner plate, stretched…big pink worms pressed against the sides of the bubble and the water froze inside him. The monster, wanted to get to him. It tapped the bubble and the world shook around him. He turned and swam away and there it was…a tiny beautiful pink castle….sprung new and pink before him…the only solid thing…When had the whole world changed and left him alone with this relic? Maybe it would change back……..

The fish swam in complete darkness, he could just make out the distortion on the edge of the world and avoided it, barely…He pressed his lips against the side, maybe he could break free and the world would be there again…it must have been different once he must have had a time when he didn’t swim in circles…Then he saw something new and lovely, a pink palace. Was there anyone inside that tiny place that could help him…could tell him if he had always been so confused and alone in this darkness. And so hungry…

One of his eyes was useless. He supposed it had always been this way. He could feel it moving and whole but he saw nothing with it. The other eye watched the castle as he swam around it, inspecting it. It was so pretty, maybe if he turned the other way there would be more like it. He flicked his fins and twirled shaking his rump as he felt the flakes his the surface above him and he was happy, maybe that was food and maybe there would be something new to see when he finally turned….The world was blurred, the world was gone and when had this happened?

The fish could barley see at all. One eye was dead and he wondered when that had happened…it must have been so always but the world was blurring and all he could manage to focus on what the castle, it gleamed pink and purple. He couldn’t tell for sure but it must be melting too. Then he felt vibrations above him. Maybe if he swam up, there would be more castles that hadn’t melted yet, he went to the right and bumped against the edge of the world so he swam up and up.

The fish felt the world burst against his lips and he felt some new burning water and he looked below him and saw the blur that was the castle, just a brush stroke of pink. It was almost gone now, and he couldn’t remember for sure but he felt it had come from above one day. So maybe he would go there. Inside his dead eye there was nothing and as he burst through…

He was falling the world was gone…..something big was rushing to meet him, one eye could see it approaching the other saw nothing…he must have been falling forever he couldn’t remember anything else. The he hit and there was just the pain.

There was no air and he couldn’t move his tail. Everything was pain and always had been. He didn’t know why but he was sure he must have always been like this….there would be no end.


The fish’s dead eyes looked up from behind the dresser as the girl searched for him. She found him, dried out lying next to an old penny and a piece of popcorn. She was sad but it wasn’t a surprise. This was the fourth time her pet had tried to jump from his tank; she had always found him in time before. She would just have to go get another fish tomorrow. After all she had spent all that money finding the nicest bowl and the prettiest castle. The fish’s scales had been so lovely but now they were flaking off and his gills were brown instead of gold. She threw him in the trash and five minutes later she forgot him.

my mother is a firefighter, you see

in she charges,
my life in flames
and she swims through the blaze
like a

salamander in a pond

while i roll the dice
to see
what will be next to burn?