The Goldfish

1.

I bought a goldfish today. It was no bigger than my little finger, and the color of the setting sun. Sometimes, the sun would reflect off the golden orange of the goldfish and create an aurora on the small wall of the living room. It was quite beautiful, even to my eyes. She said that she would like to put this scene in her movie. And then we watched the setting sun together, dangling our feet below the small veranda, climbed into our tiny bed, and went to sleep wishing that we would have some work to do tomorrow.

That night, I dreamt that the goldfish ate her up and became larger than our cramped apartment. I couldn’t, or rather, didn’t do anything as she screamed out for help in the flash of golden orange movement. The cramped apartment was not longer cramped. Our apartment was no longer ours. But it wasn’t mine, either- it was the goldfish’s.

“You’ve been dreaming again?”

I nodded. I couldn’t look at her face. Not after that dream.

“Jojo, it’s okay. It’s just a dream. I know that you’ll become big one day- you’re the best actor I’ve ever seen. They say dreams are the opposite of the truth, right?”

I nodded.

“Now don’t you worry and go to sleep. I’ll keep awake until you sleep again.”

Without a word, I dug into her arms, like the countless nights before and tried to soothe myself to sleep. She too, without a word, rhythmically patted my back with those two tiny hands of hers. What was different tonight was that she would fall asleep before me. The emotion that this dream gave me was not the same thing that she had soothed down every night. No, it was something much larger and dominating, yet so sweet and exhilarating that it could eat me up, like the goldfish that gobbled her up in one gulp.

2.

“Number 598, please come in.”

I headed toward the open doors. Approximately ten pairs of eyes were riveted on me, searching me from the way I walked to the way I talked. A sigh escaped my lips. A tall man sitting in the center frowned and wrote something on his paper.

“You may start any moment.”

With those words, I was no longer Zoe Moore. I only have faint memories of those few minutes, but I was looking and acting upon the world from another’s perspective. The world was no longer that of mine, but of another entity. It was only much later that I realized that another entity was the mammoth goldfish from my dream.

3.

She was sleeping sitting on the sofa in which two people could barely fit in. The small chocolate cake on the table with an unlit candle in the center made it clear that she had been waiting for me to celebrate my birthday together. Unfortunately for her, my birthday had already been celebrated by the best actors, directors, authors, and many other celebrities in the country. Fame was a delicious thing. Homemade chocolate cake was nothing compared to expensive cake designed and baked especially for me by the best pastry chefs in the country.

“You’re late.”

She was right behind me. I turned to look into her eyes; reproachful eyes. Anger slid up my throat.

“I couldn’t help it.”

“We always celebrated your birthday together with our homemade cake- just the two of us- remember?”

Why couldn’t she understand? She had always told me that I was the best actor in the world. Now that I had become one, she treated me like that worthless nothing that cried in her arms every night. I was now proud upon the world, and there was nothing that could stop me. The most famous people wanted me, and I had no reason not to go to them- I belonged there.

I turned from her to feed the goldfish. The glass tub was empty.

“I took it to the hospital because it was getting too fat. I was afraid it might have some problem- it’ll come back…”

That was it. That was my goldfish, and no one had any right whatsoever to take it away from me. I looked down into her eyes. Now I could see what was behind it. She wanted me to be forever dependent on her, to remain as that little boy who was the best actor only to her. She wanted to pull me down from this place. Hands trembled at her selfishness. How dare she- a mere nameless movie director- touch my goldfish?

“Get out.”

“Pardon?”

“Get out of this place. Never come back. Don’t ever be seen again. Do you hear? I said, get out of my apartment!”

“Jojo…this is our apartment.”

“That’s why you won’t get out? Then I’ll get out of this place myself. You can have this dirty little apartment all to yourself.”

4.

The goldfish could no longer live in the small tank that it had originally lived in. It was now so big (much longer than my hands which were big even for a man) that I sometimes wondered if I had bought a carp instead of a goldfish. So I bought it a new tank, much larger, and of a size that we could never have even imagined putting in our small living room before. The goldfish entertained itself happily in its new home and grew well even when I couldn’t feed because I was busy with my schedules and shooting new movies.

5.

The media was desperately looking for me. They wanted to ask me how I felt now that my movie was bumped down to second place by a movie directed by some unknown amateur movie director.

“I never thought of this as a competition. I’m just glad that we have more good movies in the world.”

The interview later came out as an article that praised me for my love for my profession and large heart. Truth was, I wanted to strangle the breath out of the woman I had once called my lover right then and there. So this was how she revenged my leaving her- by once again looking down on me. Hands trembled once more at hatred for her selfishness and possessiveness. Why wouldn’t she leave me alone?

The moment I reached my home, I went right in front of the tank and fed my goldfish. Suddenly it didn’t look that large at all. I poured the whole bag of food into the tank.

“Eat this and grow- goldfish.”

6.

She was standing on the stage holding a large golden trophy- something not even the most famous directors had managed to get into their hands all their lives. I too had a trophy in my hands, but hers glowed much brighter and was much larger than this poorly made trophy in my hands. Hearing her spit out meaningless words of thanks into the mike, I thought that the trophy looked like my goldfish. From size to the fake golden glow, the trophy was exactly like my goldfish.

“And lastly, I want to thank my best actor. I want to tell him that I never was in a competition in him, and that all I ever wanted was to film that scene of him and his goldfish glowing like the setting sun in our small apartment.”

Her eyes met mine. I did not let them hold my eyes for long. For some reason, I couldn’t. I just wanted to see my goldfish.

7.

It was floating on the surface of the water- stomach up towards the sky. Its eyes were thwarted and dumb. Looking into those dead eyes, I realized that they were the eyes of the colossal goldfish that had appeared in my dream all those years ago. I also realized that they were my eyes. That day I became the best actor in the world- the goldfish had become me. Ever since then, I had looked upon the world, acting, and her from the perspective of the giant goldfish from my dream.

Why hadn’t I seen? She still called that dirty apartment ‘our’ apartment. She was still my lover. She was still the amateur movie director that had found me, her best actor in an empty practice room. She wasn’t the one who had changed- I was.

I was a mere goldfish, dumb and gold; now dead.

#stellakim #fiction