The first night with my new goldfish the water filter trickled me to sleep, but I woke halfway through a dream certain I was sinking. The hook punctured, the line was cast, it sunk beneath the current. I peaked out of the corner of my eyes and watched my dad tie it up as bait. Take it, take it, take it! I didn’t want to hold it when I knew where it would end up. A fat worm monster wriggled between my thumb and index in victory. I dug through the pink fleshy knots and found it, the nightcrawler. Past the watermelon bits and jack-o-lantern crusts, I was down deep into the compost tracking the biggest, meanest looking worms.Īt the culvert my dad handed me the kitchen Tupperware of them. Fishing meant worms and worms meant digging in a pile of last year’s leaves for nightcrawlers, those big worms that look like they eat other, less dangerous worms for breakfast.īefore we left I was absorbed by the pile of leaves and dirt. My dad called this fishing hole the culvert. #Oxenfree tumblr fullShe had a full head of hair and a little wrinkly body that felt like moist tissue paper ready to tear and crumble. The first time I met her she was red cheeked and smiling in her sleep. My second sister’s daughter was born a few months later. I had nightmares of buckling her in a car seat and accidentally decapitating her with the seat belt. I was scared I would drop her or hurt her in some tragic unforeseeable horror. She was more of a bean sprout than a baby. In the hospital my oldest sister’s daughter was wrapped in a white blanket. When my sisters had babies I didn’t want to hold them. The problem with fish is you can’t really play with them. They swam the same lap around the tank again and again. I watched them with my nose inches from the glass. I named them based on imagined backstories and hoped I hadn’t left any of their fishy friends back at the store alone. I crumbled orange fish flakes into bite-sized pieces and stood in front of the tank to watch the three golden fish nibble. Purple rocks, Buddha bubbler, and two green plastic things that looked kind of like plants if I squinted. I set up a tank on the dresser near my desk. Snails aren’t technically allowed in dorms, so when I bought my goldfish I grabbed one just to feel like I was breaking the rules. Sometimes they sold cannibal crabs and snails in cups without much water. While stocking up on Ramon Noodles I found out Wal-Mart sold fish, goldfish mostly but betas and green spotted puffer fish too. I heard rumors about a puppy down campus that was potty trained to be lowered two stories out the window by a simple rope and harness but I never saw it myself. The brick walls were lonely and the only pets allowed in the dormitory were fish. I followed the jumping fish icon blinking across his wrist and counted how many blinks I could hold my breath.įreshman year of college I missed my family so much I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t allowed to talk and I was nervous to fish wrong so I sat in silence and stared at my dad’s father’s day watch I had given him. We hunkered down in the grass where the line wouldn’t get caught by sunken logs. He crept over the traffic barrier at the edge of the road and lifted me across, warning me not to kick gravel into the river. We wore dark clothing so the fish couldn’t see us. My dad took me to the fishing hole down the road behind the golf course.
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