Babel Fish - Episode 2

Read EPISODE 1 here.


I step a step closer, and then yet closer, and it isn’t exactly my mind but rather my hand - my right hand - that does what all it does next. That is, it pulls out the small fishing spoon-net from the box stuck away behind the aquarium, removes the brown plastic roof of the glass-box, dips it inside the water, and waves it to and fro. Somewhat mindlessly. 

I mean, since when did hands have minds?

The green and blue water ripples; the fisherman fishing afloat seems stirred up, finally, and disgusted. The frog at the bottom however doesn’t mind much. My real, BFF, goldfishes think it’s time for food again and come out of their hides.

Everyone and everything react, but for IT.

IT plain sits in a cozy corner, somewhere behind the plastic bushes and atop the red marbles, looking at me teasingly. It looks amused; a bit taunting, too.

It is NOT funny - I say in my mind – but not exactly aloud. 

I am a tad scared now, if I be totally honest with you!

I mean, what the fish, this!

I hold it on, and on, and though I don’t watch the watch, it becomes from a few minutes to a fewer more minutes. 

No reaction, yet.

I finally give up. Or at least, think I would. I start slightly pulling the net back by its handle.

-         Hey, wait Man. – IT quips, finally alerted. Hold, hold, I’m comin'!

See, life is all about who blinks first – I always knew.

I feel a bit back in control. It’s my aquarium, and inside my house, afterall! And in my city, my country… whatever! You get it.

I see it swimming past the bushes and the bubbles towards the net; lazily enough to keep back its high-browed attitude but fast enough to not let the chance go.

I hold.

It reaches.

It leaps and jumps and gets inside the net and sits in it, relaxed, and tells me with a gesture of an eye - and how it does it I can’t explain - to take it and IT out of it.

I do.

My hand does, that is.

I bring it out and jerk it off the net on to my palm.

It gives its body a slight shake and rests back on the surface, and then looks back at me.

In my eyes.

So? – say I.

So! – shrugs IT!

What the fish!

 (TO BE CONTINUED.... Watch this space for more!)