Momma said I could get a fish if I would just quit yappin in her ear because apparently I tend to yap in her ear when I get bored but I don’t think it’s entirely my fault because there aren’t many ears around for me to yap in unless you count my own but I’m not really good at yappin in my own ear and to tell you the truth I don’t think anybody really is. So the deal was if I would just stop yappin in her ear she would buy me a fish because I’ve been begging for a fish since…bless his soul—Mr. Armstrong passed. I’m pretty sure I fed him a bit too much or maybe I didn’t feed him at all I’m not entirely sure to be honest but either way Mr. Armstrong is no more. Anyway, the only way I could make myself stop yappin was if I taped my mouth shut which is exactly what I did and by the end of the day Momma just looked at me heaving out a big old sigh after rolling her eyes and said real sweet and real sassy:
Fine.
I couldn’t have been happier—honest. I could tell Momma was extremely enthused at my accomplishment, as was I, because of the way she sighed. It was more of a happy sigh rather than an annoyed sigh—don’t let the rolling of the eyes fool you. Her eyes were rolling of pure happiness. She was happy I was getting a fish. I was happy I was getting a fish. I know Daddy would be upset about it because of the last few times I’ve gotten fishes and acted out but I generally make him upset for loads of reasons anyway so I try to stay away from him but this time I would be real good to the fish and real good overall—honest.
She brought me to the store and I looked through all the big tanks but all the fish just looked sad and old and I didn’t really want my fish looking all sad and old. I put my hands right up against the glass of one of the smaller tanks and a little sad old goldfish swam right up to me and I knew it would be the one. I told Momma I could teach it tricks and everything. She pointed with her fat finger at the fish with her nails all sparking with the prettiest blue you ever did see and said you can’t teach fish tricks. Maybe she was right I don’t know but all I could think about was how I was gunna have a new fish.
She said we had to pick a tank out for the thing and to keep it real simple and real cheap because the vase we kept my last fish in was filled with nice flowers. Most of the tanks were these big old boxy things but I wanted one of those nice looking round fish bowls—the ones that are big enough for you head and kinda look like an upside down spacesuit helmet. That’s all you’d need —a nice simple helmet-looking bowl to put the fish in then you got yourself a happy place for a little sad old goldfish. So that’s exactly what we got. On the way home Momma reminded me that I gotta keep my yappin to a minimum and be real good to the thing because it was living and all. I promised and taped my mouth shut. She just sighed and drove us home.
When we got back I went straight to my room and put the bowl right on my desk and poured the little old fish in it. It just started floating around not really moving much which got me a bit nervous and I started shaking because it was supposed to be moving. I kinda tilted my head to
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look at it and spun the bowl around and it started wiggling its little fins. It was alright. I started thinking about what I should name it. A fish ought to have a name I’d think. It was a living thing and all but I couldn’t decide right away.
You could see right through the bowl because it was glass and everything. You could see the bright blue sky and clouds through the bowl—not the real ones but the ones on my wall. Momma said my room used to be my nursery and they wanted me to feel like the room was my world so they made the walls real bright and put clouds all over and even put stars on the ceiling —the one’s that glow and everything. Just so my room could be the world. The fish didn’t know that. It just saw the blue and the clouds and the stars and my little gray bed in the middle of the room.
I wanted to give it its own little world and make the fish bowl habitable because Momma said I should make the bowl habitable. I went in the backyard and got some little gray rocks and washed them and put them in it bowl and stuck a really big one right in the middle. The little fish swam all around it and it kinda reminded me of a little ship orbiting the moon! It looked like a little astronaut doing a little dance. When I got in bed later that night I could see out of the corner of my eye the little fish swimming around the moon. I decided to name it Major Tom.
***
Pshh. Ground control to Major Tom…I put my hand over my mouth to make it sound just like a walkie talkie like they do in all the movies when they’re tryna sound like they’re talking through a walkie talkie…Major Tom, are you there? Over. Pshh. I was giggling all over the place under
the covers but I was tryna be quiet so Momma didn’t yell at me to quit yappin. I stacked up the pillows against my bed to make a nice tiny old fort. I peeked my head out from under the blankets to see how Major Tom was doing as he was on an extremely important mission to find extraterrestrial life. Of course it was just sitting on my desk staring at me wiggling a bit near the moon but it liked to play pretend too. Pshh. Mission almost complete. Over. Pshh. I could hear the fish loud and clear.
It was getting real dark outside with the sky turning red and blue and purple the way it does but I kept my lights off so the stars on my ceiling would glow like they usually do. Momma opened my door and saw me sitting under all the covers and told me to go to sleep because it was late as hell and she didn’t want me being all whiny in the morning. I’m not always whiny in the morning but apparently when I don’t get my sleep I get real whiny in the morning and start yappin all over the place and Momma doesn’t really like that. Daddy says it makes me talk in a higher pitched voice than usual but I’m not too sure about that. I wasn’t about to go to sleep because I had my own mission to do.
When it got real dark outside I could hear Momma and Daddy shuffling down the hallway to bed and I waited until they were sleeping real good. I could tell they were sleeping real good because
I could hear them dreaming. Momma said when you’re sleeping real good you make noises in 2
your sleep which tells everyone around that you’re dreaming and to not wake you up. When they were sleeping real good, Major Tom watched me peep my head out into the hallway to check both ways before sneaking into the bathroom down the hall. I knew where Momma kept her prettiest blue nail polish—it was real pretty. It was all dark and blue like the sky at night and it glittered a bit when you put it in the light. I liked opening the bottle and I liked the smell when it was all wet. My hands get shaky sometimes. They actually get shaky all the time, especially when I’m all nervous, but I tried my best to spread the paint over my nails without my hands shaking the entire time because it just felt right. Then I snuck back into my room.
Pshh. Looks like Earth blue from the moon. Over. Pshh. Major Tom liked the way it looked too. It was its favorite color. It reminded it of its mission of being deep in space looking for a new life. I pressed my hands right up against its little glass bowl as the paint dried. I challenged Major Tom to a staring contest. It didn’t blink but I couldn’t help myself—Major Tom always wins. After a few round it was all dry so I hopped on my bed and started jumping around and wrapped the blankets all around me. I got in front of my mirror and I looked all cozy and funny-looking. I spun around with the blanket swirling all around me and started giggling again as Major Tom watched me holdout my hand as I stared at the paint glittering on my fingers. I think I did a pretty good job but that’s only because I copied what I’ve seen Momma do loads of times and I’ve done it twice before.
I jumped right back on my bed and looked up at the stars glowing on my ceilings and tried to get my fingers to touch them but I couldn’t get high enough because the ceiling’s pretty high. The blanket swished around me just like a fish and I could just imagine slipping into Major Tom’s bowl to teach each other tricks. Pshh. Major Tom. Looks like I can swim too! Over. Pshh. Then it taught me how to wiggle all around through the water with my fins and tail. Told me I gotta have determination so I tried real hard to have determination and then I was told I was doing alright but that I had to be careful. Pshh. The current’s tough. You are swimming fine. Just swim to the stars. The spaceship knows which way to go. Over. Pshh. Major Tom was my favorite fish.
***
I wasn’t yappin but I guess jumping on my bed and giggling all over the place in the middle of the night made a bit too much noise because I could hear footsteps in the hallway coming to my door.
What do you think you’re doing—what the hell do you think you’re doing, with that on? Come here…now!
Daddy’s voice was like thunder—it really was. I could feel the paint on my walls turn real gray with the clouds as Daddy spoke because he spoke not in the nice way but in the mean way. He was asking me a question but he really wasn’t and I don’t like when he does that but he does it a
lot. He pulled me in the hallway and made me get real close which made me feel real small because Daddy’s the tallest person I know because he just is—honest.
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What do you think other kids are gunna think about that, huh? When they see you lookin like this? Scrape all of that off, you hear me? Don’t let me catch you doing that in this house again. How many times do I have to tell you?
I was just playing with Major Tom—
Major Tom what? You’re playing with the damn fish again… I just—I just can’t with it. This is the third time, the third time. “Major Tom.” You can’t be—we’re getting rid of it —that’s it—you gotta straighten out.
Daddy, I’ll be good—honest!
And then I started shaking real bad because I was real nervous and kinda scared and Daddy makes me real scared especially when he makes his voice all deep and angry. Then he got even closer to me and pulled his hand up and I zipped my mouth shut and he slapped me harder than he ever did before and pushed me in my room and said to not come out until I scraped it all off. I thought that was it but he didn’t stop and I just saw all the clouds on my wall start to rain—the sky turned real gray and I started crying. He picked up the bowl and started walking out. Major Tom was completely unaware of what was happening so it just swam around its little moon looking like it was on a mission. You’re fine, okay? You’re just going on a special mission—just another mission. It couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t do anything.
I warned you the first and second damn time. You gotta act like you’re supposed to. And stop talking in that voice you do. You gotta try. You gotta.
And then he flushed Major Tom just like that—and then he looked at me as I sat on my bed crying and shook his head as he placed the bowl down where it was just a couple minutes before but this time it was empty. I scraped the paint off my fingers with my teeth and cried and couldn’t stop my hands shaking all over—my entire body was shaking. Daddy didn’t need to do that but he did because he can’t be raising a different kid but Major Tom didn’t mind. Major Tom liked making pretend and swimming and the moon. Major Tom was a happy little sad old goldfish—a good fish. So I just cried and I couldn’t stop but that’s okay because sometimes you just can’t stop crying so I just wrapped the blankets around me and gave up scraping because it was really pretty and I liked the way it glittered in the light…just like the stars. I was looking out my window when Momma said to go back to bed and to quit crying because Daddy was right.
I just laid on my bed with my belly up and tilted my head a bit and saw the empty bowl out of the corner of my eye. I was still sad but I went over and picked it up along with some tape and brought them on the bed. It was real late now and Momma and Daddy were dreaming again. But
the stars were glowing real bright. I grabbed a long piece of tape and put it right over my lips. I was gunna be quiet until I could learn how to swim a bit better. And then I stared at the empty bowl in my hands with my scraped up fingers wrapped all around it. Pshh. Put your helmet on.
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The stars look very different today. Look. Over. Pshh. I could hear the voice—I really could. And I put that bowl right over my head and could hear myself breathing real steady and I stopped shaking and the gray covers around me started to rumble before turning into air. And the clouds started to move real fast all around my walls as smoke began to come up from under me. And the stars started to get real bright right above my head as I heard the faintest voice: Pshh. Commencing countdown. Five. Four. Three. Two…
–NRH