THE SHAPE OF FISH

flash fiction

I entered the pet store and started looking at the puppies. All of them were asleep; not one of them was awake. There were about ten puppies to look at. They were all asleep in their little cages.

Then I went to look at the fish. But before I could look at the fish I had to pass a lot of pet materials like leashes and pet food and preservatives and collars and tanks and other pet things I didn’t understand the use for. The fish tanks were at the end of the aisle. I approached them like a plane coming in for a landing – I was very careful not to approach too fast.

Not many people were in the store; mainly, I thought, because all of the puppies were asleep. Most people, it seems, come into pet stores to look at the puppies. This store currently had no kittens to look at, so that was not a factor. And fish are really boring to look at unless you are a person who is into color schemes and the shape of fish and the like.
I am into fish, but less so than puppies. I really like looking at puppies.

Standing in front of a tank of fish, I watched a red one and black-and-white-striped one and a miniature shark and a guppie. They seemed not to know there were other fish around them, like they were all alone in the tank.

Well, I felt alone too.

Just then, a girl came up and asked if I needed help. I thought, Do you think I need help looking at fish?, but decided not to actually say this to her. She was a young girl who appeared fragile emotionally, so I just said, ‘No thanks, I’m fine, just browsing.’ Then she smiled and walked off. I don’t know exactly where she went.

I got tired of looking at the fish. I went back to the puppies. Now one of them was awake – a German Shepherd – but had its head between its paws. The eyes were open and it was just staring straight ahead. Not at me, not at anything, really. Certainly not at the pet materials.

I tried to get its attention by waving my hands and kneeling down to get into its field of vision, but it kept staring. It looked very depressed.

I grew tired so I left the store and went home and when I got there I turned on the TV and fell asleep and dreamed I was a puppy in a store and that no one ever came to look at me except a small child who wandered in and tugged at the mother’s coat and asked, ‘Can we get it? Can we get it?’ and all the mother said was ‘No, I hate puppies, they’re so messy. Let’s go the toy store, okay?’ And my puppyhood continued until I died and they carried me out in a black bag and dumped me into a ravine and the crows came and ate me, leaving only bones and a skull, which became embedded into the soil and in the autumn was covered by leaves which rotted into a sealant, entombing me forever and ever and ever.