The Art of Raising Goldfish
Written as a 'Journey' story for English; despite that, I'm rather fond of it. For any not studying English in NSW, Australia, I can assure you that the HSC syllabus is utterly ridiculous and not worth spending much time on, unless you want to suscribe to the system, get a high UAI and go to a good university...wait, maybe it is worth spending time on...
Title: The Art of Raising Goldfish
Summary: Original story. Enlightenment and inner journeys through the raising of goldfish. Yes, really.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1099
“It has been scientifically proven that people with pets are healthier in body and mind, and have a more positive outlook on life.”
The First
Step One: Visit your local pet shop, and buy the goldfish, the fish bowl, and assorted paraphernalia. Don’t forget the fish food - goldfish don’t do well without it.
Step Two: Set up the fish bowl, with fluorescent gravel and incandescent plants, and enough water to cover everything. Insert goldfish from the clear plastic bag into the bowl.
Step Three: Feed the goldfish periodically.
Step Four: Sleep in for four days, and rush off to university without feeding the fish, forgetting the living organism in your care and allowing it to die. Flush the dead fish down the toilet and clean out the bowl.
The Second
Step One: Return to your local pet shop, and purchase a goldfish, this time without assorted paraphernalia. Smile brightly at the sales assistant who looks at you suspiciously.
Step Two: Set up the fish bowl, with fluorescent gravel and incandescent plants, and enough water to cover everything. Insert the goldfish from the clear plastic bag into the bowl.
Step Three: Manufacture a giant, neon-coloured paper sign to place above fish food, so that you remember to feed the fish periodically.
Step Four: Watch the fish. Watch it swim back and forth, amongst the bright plastic plants. Fish live simple lives; they don’t have to deal with assignments and boyfriends and paycheques. Feel at one with the fish.
Step Five: Come home half asleep and three-quarters drunk, crash into the shelf, and send the fish bowl flying. Avoid stepping on glass; feel a squelch underfoot from fish. Stagger into bed and curse against dependant pets and obliging parents.
Step Six: Wake up hung over. Find fish mess on the bottom of your foot, and across the carpet. Collapse onto the floor and wish you had never bought the damn animal in the first place. Clean up the fish-and-glass mess.
The Third
Step One: Tramp up to your local pet shop, and get the damn fish, fish bowl, and assorted paraphernalia. Make sure to get extra-fabulous fish food - if it’s going to die, it may as well get a good treat first. Glare at the smirking sales assistant.
Step Two: Set up the fish bowl, with fluorescent gravel and incandescent plants, and enough water to cover everything. Insert goldfish from the clear plastic bag into the bowl. Attach the giant neon sign over the food.
Step Three: Watch the fish. Watch how the light glints on the orange and yellow scales, light that has to struggle through the thickness of glass and water to reach the fish, and then struggle back out again to reach your eyes, so that you can see your pet swimming in the water. Marvel that light is capable of such a feat, and that you are capable of being alive, and seeing, and realising how marvellous it is. Feel the determination rising up within you, the drive to succeed, to make something of yourself. To prove to the world, to yourself, to your stupid boyfriend, to your obliging parents, that you can keep the damn fish alive.
Step Four: Clear a space on your other bookshelf, in the place where any trophies you had ever earned would have gone, and place in it the fish bowl, with said fish still inside it. Be proud of what feels like your greatest achievement.
Step Five: Have your boyfriend over, and let him talk you down, and make you feel worthless, hopeless and generally not much of a human being. Let him eat all your food, spill it all over your couch, and into your fish bowl. Let him get drunk on your alcohol, and scream, and thrash about, and knock down the fish bowl, so that glass shatters and water spreads and the fish flops. Push your boyfriend out of the door, which you slam. Slide down against the wall and cry.
Step Six: Wake up. Put on Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” and sing at the top of your voice. Call up your ex-boyfriend and tell him he’s dumped. Clean up the glass and the mess; give the fish a burial at sea.
The Fourth
Step One: Stride up to your local pet shop, head held high, and acquire the goldfish, fish bowl, and assorted paraphernalia. Choose normal fish food, so as not to jinx the thing. Smile beatifically at the gob-smacked sales assistant.
Step Two: At home, set up the fish bowl, with fluorescent gravel and incandescent plants, and enough water to cover everything. Insert goldfish from the clear plastic bag into the bowl. Attach the giant neon sign over the food.
Step Three: Write a ‘New Fish Resolution’ that details the responsibilities of fish care, the need to avoid copious amounts of alcohol consumption, the importance of punctuality, the benefits of self-respect, and the corruptive evils of ex-boyfriends that need not be named.
Step Four: Watch your fish. Watch its pretty flippy, floaty tail, and its big, boggle, bubble eyes. Be amazed by the simple philosophy of fish: blub blub. Tease the fish by rubbing your fingers together above the bowl, so that it swims up and searches for non-existent food. Be gleeful that you have power and might over the fish, and that you’re gaining control over yourself. Feel proud that the fish isn’t actually hungry, because you remember to feed it every day.
Step Five: Arrive early to tutorials, and hand your assignments in on time. Sit under the jacaranda tree, with its soft purple-green canopy, and let the smell of summer waft over you as, for the first time in months, you feel relaxed.
Step Six: Touch the edge of the fish bowl each time you pass by, as a lucky charm to help you through the day. Smile at the fish.
Step Seven: Pluck up the newly-found confidence to enter a creative writing competition, detailing the trials and tribulations of raising goldfish. Win first prize, and move the fish bowl across to make space for the trophy.
Step Eight: Promenade up to your local pet shop, and buy a goldfish, engaging the amused sales assistant in light conversation. Return home, and introduce your fourth goldfish to its new friend.
Title: The Art of Raising Goldfish
Summary: Original story. Enlightenment and inner journeys through the raising of goldfish. Yes, really.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1099
“It has been scientifically proven that people with pets are healthier in body and mind, and have a more positive outlook on life.”
The First
Step One: Visit your local pet shop, and buy the goldfish, the fish bowl, and assorted paraphernalia. Don’t forget the fish food - goldfish don’t do well without it.
Step Two: Set up the fish bowl, with fluorescent gravel and incandescent plants, and enough water to cover everything. Insert goldfish from the clear plastic bag into the bowl.
Step Three: Feed the goldfish periodically.
Step Four: Sleep in for four days, and rush off to university without feeding the fish, forgetting the living organism in your care and allowing it to die. Flush the dead fish down the toilet and clean out the bowl.
The Second
Step One: Return to your local pet shop, and purchase a goldfish, this time without assorted paraphernalia. Smile brightly at the sales assistant who looks at you suspiciously.
Step Two: Set up the fish bowl, with fluorescent gravel and incandescent plants, and enough water to cover everything. Insert the goldfish from the clear plastic bag into the bowl.
Step Three: Manufacture a giant, neon-coloured paper sign to place above fish food, so that you remember to feed the fish periodically.
Step Four: Watch the fish. Watch it swim back and forth, amongst the bright plastic plants. Fish live simple lives; they don’t have to deal with assignments and boyfriends and paycheques. Feel at one with the fish.
Step Five: Come home half asleep and three-quarters drunk, crash into the shelf, and send the fish bowl flying. Avoid stepping on glass; feel a squelch underfoot from fish. Stagger into bed and curse against dependant pets and obliging parents.
Step Six: Wake up hung over. Find fish mess on the bottom of your foot, and across the carpet. Collapse onto the floor and wish you had never bought the damn animal in the first place. Clean up the fish-and-glass mess.
The Third
Step One: Tramp up to your local pet shop, and get the damn fish, fish bowl, and assorted paraphernalia. Make sure to get extra-fabulous fish food - if it’s going to die, it may as well get a good treat first. Glare at the smirking sales assistant.
Step Two: Set up the fish bowl, with fluorescent gravel and incandescent plants, and enough water to cover everything. Insert goldfish from the clear plastic bag into the bowl. Attach the giant neon sign over the food.
Step Three: Watch the fish. Watch how the light glints on the orange and yellow scales, light that has to struggle through the thickness of glass and water to reach the fish, and then struggle back out again to reach your eyes, so that you can see your pet swimming in the water. Marvel that light is capable of such a feat, and that you are capable of being alive, and seeing, and realising how marvellous it is. Feel the determination rising up within you, the drive to succeed, to make something of yourself. To prove to the world, to yourself, to your stupid boyfriend, to your obliging parents, that you can keep the damn fish alive.
Step Four: Clear a space on your other bookshelf, in the place where any trophies you had ever earned would have gone, and place in it the fish bowl, with said fish still inside it. Be proud of what feels like your greatest achievement.
Step Five: Have your boyfriend over, and let him talk you down, and make you feel worthless, hopeless and generally not much of a human being. Let him eat all your food, spill it all over your couch, and into your fish bowl. Let him get drunk on your alcohol, and scream, and thrash about, and knock down the fish bowl, so that glass shatters and water spreads and the fish flops. Push your boyfriend out of the door, which you slam. Slide down against the wall and cry.
Step Six: Wake up. Put on Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” and sing at the top of your voice. Call up your ex-boyfriend and tell him he’s dumped. Clean up the glass and the mess; give the fish a burial at sea.
The Fourth
Step One: Stride up to your local pet shop, head held high, and acquire the goldfish, fish bowl, and assorted paraphernalia. Choose normal fish food, so as not to jinx the thing. Smile beatifically at the gob-smacked sales assistant.
Step Two: At home, set up the fish bowl, with fluorescent gravel and incandescent plants, and enough water to cover everything. Insert goldfish from the clear plastic bag into the bowl. Attach the giant neon sign over the food.
Step Three: Write a ‘New Fish Resolution’ that details the responsibilities of fish care, the need to avoid copious amounts of alcohol consumption, the importance of punctuality, the benefits of self-respect, and the corruptive evils of ex-boyfriends that need not be named.
Step Four: Watch your fish. Watch its pretty flippy, floaty tail, and its big, boggle, bubble eyes. Be amazed by the simple philosophy of fish: blub blub. Tease the fish by rubbing your fingers together above the bowl, so that it swims up and searches for non-existent food. Be gleeful that you have power and might over the fish, and that you’re gaining control over yourself. Feel proud that the fish isn’t actually hungry, because you remember to feed it every day.
Step Five: Arrive early to tutorials, and hand your assignments in on time. Sit under the jacaranda tree, with its soft purple-green canopy, and let the smell of summer waft over you as, for the first time in months, you feel relaxed.
Step Six: Touch the edge of the fish bowl each time you pass by, as a lucky charm to help you through the day. Smile at the fish.
Step Seven: Pluck up the newly-found confidence to enter a creative writing competition, detailing the trials and tribulations of raising goldfish. Win first prize, and move the fish bowl across to make space for the trophy.
Step Eight: Promenade up to your local pet shop, and buy a goldfish, engaging the amused sales assistant in light conversation. Return home, and introduce your fourth goldfish to its new friend.