Jeremy’s fish store was visited mainly by children, often with parents in tow who promised them a pet but didn’t want to commit to a dog. They swarmed the store at Christmas, bought the odd bottle of fish food around Easter, then ceased to haunt the store for a year. Jeremy knew the fish he sold would last six months at best, but he saw it as a lesser evil. Fish were as disposable as a pet could get (save for whatever hamsters were).
Indeed, only three fish had managed to stay at his store for longer than six months. They sat in a fishbowl, next to the cash register and a poster of Marilyn Monroe on his counter. The glass of the fishbowl was warped, it turned the shapes of the fish into dull smears of colour. Even the water at the top of the tank was clearer, and it was only when Jeremy looked through it that he could see the fish clearly.
One day, as he was watching the fish before opening time, marvelling at the way they swam around the church decoration he had placed in it, he tripped, falling into the fishbowl.
Into the fishbowl, tumbling head over heels and splashing into the lukewarm water. Instead of floating, he sunk, all the way to the base of the bowl. Now, Jeremy was standing in the very plastic ferns he had arranged. He heard a voice behind him.
“Oh my god, it’s God!”
Jeremey frowned. “I’m not God.”
He turned around to see who he was talking to. It was a fish – his fish, the guppy he had bought two months ago before realising he was overstocked and dumping it into the fishbowl.
“Oh god.”
“Oh, you?”
“You’re a fish.”
The guppy blinked. “That I am.”
“What’s God doing?”
Before Jeremy could begin to question how the fish was able to speak to him, another swam over. It was the bubble eye goldfish that he had bought for kids to gawk at as he handled payment with their parents. The fish tried to stop swimming, but the weight of the air sacs underneath its eyes caused it to spin in circles. Before it could put itself upright again, a booming voice echoed through the water.
“Is God here? I need to greet him.”
It was the final fish. It swam over lazily, as if it had all the time in the world. Now that he was eye level with it, Jeremy could see that this fish had an odd marking above its lip, almost like a mole.
“Marifyn Mon Roe!” The bubble eyed goldfish cried, floundering helplessly. Marifyn ignored it and turned to Jeremy.
“A real god, in our fishtank! We must have been worshipping particularly well to have this happen.”
“Worshipping?”
“You know, swimming in circles around the fynagouge, chanting to each other like you gods do.”
“We’re humans, not gods.”
“Humans? Exotic, I like it. But yes, since you chose us to live in paradise,” the fish spun in a circle, gesturing at the plastic rocks and ferns, “worshipping you is the least we could do.”
“And you-” (Here, Marifyn looked to the guppy, glaring at it) “have been slacking off. You need to clean the fynagouge. You don’t want to make the gods angry, do you? They might forget to feed us again.”
“Hey! That was one time.”
“I know – and of course it’s not your fault! It’s ours – the guppy’s, mainly. You’re our saviour. We don’t know why you chose to save us from death, but you did!”
“That’s wrong. I didn’t kill the other fish-”
“Didn’t you seal them away in chambers and give them to your minions?”
“You’ve got the wrong idea.”
“No, I know what I’m talking about.”
Jeremy scoffed and walked away. Though he didn’t think of them often, he liked these fish. He was fond of them and the odd ways they swam through the tank, and he wanted them to live happy half-lives, not whatever this was.
He tried to talk to the bubble eyed goldfish, but it was too busy trying to swim in a straight line to hear him. He tried to speak to the guppy, but it was too busy sweeping artificial rocks away from the plastic fynagouge. Finally, he had no other option but to speak again with Marifyn Mon Roe.
“God?”
“For the last time, I’m not a god. You shouldn’t worship any human as a god.”
Marifyn blinked at him. “Why not?”
“Well, we’re all a bit stupid, really.” He coughed, and bubbles popped up in the water. “We keep fish for entertainment, get mad when we’re out of milk or stuck in traffic… We can’t even decide if healthcare should be universal, for god’s sake. You don’t need to worship people who put you in places you don’t choose to go to. You should do the opposite, if anything.”
“But we chose the bowl. We chose to fall into it and get affected by gravity.”
“That’s impossible. You can’t choose to get affected by gravity when it affects everyone.”
“Well, you can’t explain our choice to someone who refuses to believe.” Marifyn sniffed pointedly and turned away. Jeremy had stuck a nerve. The other fish followed suit, and they all hid behind the fynagouge to talk.
Jeremy looked out from the fishtank into what he could see of the shop. As distorted and confusing as it was, he could still make out the massive shapes of his cash register, and the poster of Marilyn Monroe which seemed to tower over him.
He felt small.
He wondered what life would be like if all he could ever remember was this fishbowl, if he had constantly been surrounded by things greater than him. He would probably try to create meaning in whatever way he could, to try and satisfy the knowledge that his existence had none.
When I’m out of this tank, he thought, I’m going to take down that poster.
