I wake up every morning the same way, with my vision frustratingly blurred and my whole body wet. I must be a goldfish. I swim so slowly I must be an expensive fish. I cannot see my whole body, but if I turn the right way, I can feel the tips of my fins against my round sides.
After I wake up, I hear and feel the vibrations of the million-tentacled creature who lives where my bowl rests. I make sure to spread my fins as it pauses in front of my bowl. I am convinced this is why it feeds me.
It dips only a few of its tentacles in my bowl and I make sure to clean them of any traces of fish food.
I like the days when the creature hangs around my bowl the best. It leaves the flashing lights on while it is home and I like to hear the music even though it’s muffled by the water and the sound of my very powerful filter. Goldfish, contrary to popular belief, need good filters to keep their water sweet and healthy. My water is always sweet and healthy. It never burns, not since the tentacle creature brought me to my bowl.
It stares at me often, making noises with its mouth. I have tried to make noises back, but I don’t think it can hear me through the water.
I dislike the days when I am placed in a smaller bowl. I cannot swim in that bowl anymore. It is the soft bowl I was in before the tentacle creature put me in my favorite bowl. When I am in the soft bowl, time moves differently. It is always dark, and the water in this bowl burns very quickly. It hurts my eyes and it hurts my mouth.
There used to be another goldfish, a white one with very long fins, that I would see in passing, but could never speak to. It made noises, but they were so quiet through the bowls and I was still getting used to using my fins. I still had a tube, then, and I was always tired.
But then I am in my bowl again and everything is sweet and healthy and the tentacled one has placed food on a stick in the pebbles of my bowl. This food is delicious, different than my every day food. I have to use my small teeth to nibble pieces off. It tastes like nothing else.
I have to finish it all or the tentacles will come down and take it back. When it takes the food away, I do not get to eat more. Not until the next dark.
I sleep very well at night. I remember long nights stayed awake, when the tentacles would forget to turn the light off my bulb. It remembers every night now. I remember long nights awake before my bowl, too, when I still had tentacles of my own. I remember wet on my face but nowhere else.
I am always wet now, and I am very expensive. I must be a beautiful goldfish, to move so slowly, and yet to be cared for so well. I hardly ever miss my tentacles. The tentacled one takes such good care of me. I wish I could see it clearly, but everything is so, so blurry underwater.
Every once in a while, the tentacled one pulls me out of the tank by my topmost fin. I can hear so clearly up here that it doesn’t matter that its tentacles pulling my fin hurts. It hurts more that I cannot breathe. It hurts worst that it is very loud outside of the water, the creature is. This is how it tells me it cares. I don’t understand the noises it makes anymore, but it never sounds bad, even though it is always loud and sometimes my fin starts to tear from its shaking.
I am always returned to my bowl. It always feeds me. I am always sweet and healthy. I am a good fish. I am a grateful fish. I am a goldfish.