The Fish

Next to the curb, snow was falling on the oversized orange and green fish shoved unceremoniously between the community garbage cans. Full of last month’s Thanksgiving paraphernalia, people forget to recycle at Christmas time, as though the only synonym for “useful” was “new”. As wide as the cans were tall, the fish was one of those prizes you win at a carnival game; the kind where you spend hours sending a little hoop clanking over old-fashioned green glass soda bottles just for the victory of it. Even I was guilty of begging my father to win me something like it once.

This particular fish’s stringy fins must have held sequins not long ago, and surely it didn’t come with that ketchup stain on its belly – or was it a heart? Gray, fluffy stuffing was escaping from the side of its fat lips, which where perpetually puckered in style of an Aunt’s big, wet kiss. The most pitiful part of its appearance, however, was the enormous brown eyes. Bigger than even the lips, the eyes protruded as giant globes. Like crystal balls which tell only the past. At one point they had said, “Love me! Fight for me! Win me! Take me home!” But now they stare at me, shocked and betrayed; making me feel guilty – as though the whole creation of itself was my entire fault.

Stitched and stuffed for profit, without children, who would want such a thing? What motivation would any adult have for owning something so easily abandoned? Say they were pressured by friends to win it, just to prove they could. For a lover perhaps… no, true love would not need such a display of wealth and trivial eye-coordination skills. Of course, no one would take a person very seriously who entertained an oversized, hideously colored, stuffed animal in their office. A giant fish isn’t really a trophy to anyone but a child – the one thing that can relate to it the most.

There are children very much like carnival fish. Obtained as a means to hold together a relationship, for pride, by force, or by accident – they are more like discarded trophies than beating hearts. Each has their own set of torn threads and stained patches, each a personal set of eyes, averted in shame for their exposure. What makes an unwanted child any different than a carnival prize?

Of course, please excuse me; this example is far too specific. Most prizes are very much wanted and hard earned. The vast majority, in fact, are placed on little shelves in little glass boxes and admired for years. How few carnival prizes are actually ever won? How many could possibly be discarded in dumps and landfills, hardly distinguishable from all the real trash out there. Didn’t watching Rudolph at Christmas teach you anything? Didn’t your mother explain the significance of The Island of Misfit Toys – that’s where all the unwanted things go! No one ever expects them to come back.

Perhaps that is what happened to this fish. It isn’t being thrown away at all; it’s merely escaping from the island. So then, credit must be given where credit is due! This fish is not a victim of industry or human pride. This fish is a fighter. Those rips and stains are evidence of life, not ugliness or death. I should bring it some hot chocolate, like my father used to bring me, and it can tell me stories of all the places it has been and all the things it has done.

The snow is beginning to pile up, creating a little happy birthday-hat on the fish’s dirty head, and filling the creases of my father’s winter coat. I decide not to get the hot chocolate. Sometimes, the independent ones don’t want to be recognized.Besides, being a misfit is not something to be too proud of anyway. Once so clean and sparkling, swimming high in the air above prospective parents, owners, victors - among others so similar to itself - there was a time when it was a wanted thing.

Now, dragging through this frigid filth, the contrasting failure is the most hopeless and heinous of eyesores. It’s all too awkward and too difficult to understand – better to just leave it alone collecting snow.

Oh, but that’s no way to live, as though the comfort of others is the only goal! Rats gnawing at fins and eyes do so just to do something with them. They’ll eat and tear until everything disappears, and then move on to the next unforgivably existing thing, without a single thought paid to memory. I want to scream at the fish, “Get up! Show them what you can do! Recognize your past! Realize how far you’ve come!” But the carnival fish would not be able to understand me; it probably doesn’t even speak English.

And besides, it’s a fish.

Toys like these have a sense of timelessness. They don’t really belong to any particular place, and it’s easy to forget that they are just fabric and thread. Carnivals themselves are romanticized scenes of mystery, wonder and fantasy. This silly fish is just an extension of that. Illusions and embellishments – lies – there is no real story here, so I might as well go inside. On the other hand, from this distance the fish is my personal side-show. Snow is pressing and piling on the head and fins. Whether the inevitable trash pick-up day, or the molding, wet stuffing - it is a doomed thing. Maybe by watching it, I can learn something about disappearing. This must be an act picked up during its carnival days. A simple trick to make the crowed curious and then leave them waiting just on the edge of discovery.

I wonder if my blue eyes can be seen, spying from underneath my father’s hood, underneath the all-consuming snow. All I can see through the whiteness are bulging brown eyes. Those orbs are no longer pleading. They evoke neither pity nor idolization. In the time it took to win the creature, it is out of sight, lost to the snow. I stand up and heavy powder falls from my father’s coat. I had forgotten I was sitting down. Turning to go back inside, I see the door, closed and bare, to my father’s house. Suddenly, a force of dormant panic awakens and surges inside me, like the thousands of pins and needles electrifying my legs. I rush to the cluster of trash, pushing away the burning snow with bare hands. Can it be saved, the wretched creature? Breath escapes my purpled lips as fog obscures my vision, already impaired in the deep blue winter twilight. Try as I might to fight through the gray matter of snow and paper pilgrims, trying to reach an end to this mess of frozen waste; trying with every drop of heated blood pushing through my veins – the carnival fish is gone. Snow drifts and whispers across the black asphalt on its belly, curving and shifting with the night. Steadily, I retreat down the empty street; looking from window to window at lights and decorations, and shaking a little every so often, so the snow doesn’t have a chance to pile up.