Living life in a Goldfish Bowl
? 2000 Martin Horton
Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to have grotesquely distorted faces peering at you with unconcealed disgust? Well it?s a daily occurrence for me. It?s not my fault, but every time I have a shit it trails along behind me like a thin tube of snot until, like pubic hair, it gets too long and falls out. I can?t help it but the faces never tire of pointing at me and sneering. Once, when my line of shite was so long it nearly circled right around my bowl, I heard one of the faces speak of cutting it off with some scissors!
Oh sorry. You look confused. I guess by the title of this story that you expected to read about the dreadfulness of someone, a celebrity maybe, whimpering about their lack privacy. I apologise for that. Let me explain. My name is Jaws. I am a Goldfish.
My first memory is of being jostled around a plastic bag at a fun fair. Fun fair? Don?t make me laugh. Fun for you maybe, but think of us Goldfish. It?s not much fun being the prize for some idiot who managed to hook a plastic duck off a revolving table. The fucking indignity of it! Anyway, my new home came to be in the house of a couple of newly weds who, I shudder to say, seem to have less shame than someone who?s licks shit off a Rats arse. I mean, they screw everywhere, all the time. Even on the shelf where my bowl sits. It?s disgusting. Because of the curvature of my bowl and the magnifying properties of water, I have to swim around watching (I can?t close my eyes, I have no bloody eye-lids) these abnormally shaped lumps of flesh wrestle around like Sumo Wrestlers with stick thin limbs. And the noise! Oh dear Poseidon, do you know what sex sounds like under water? It?s like the angry bellowing of a steer having its balls cut off mixed with the screeching of a cat as someone shuts its tail in a door. And if that wasn?t bad enough, once they?ve finished their coupling they always seem to feel the need to wander over to my bowl, naked and sweating, and tap at my glass, hoping I think, in the case of the male face anyway, that I might have died. Ha! No such luck for them. Goldfish live for forty fucking years mate! But do you have any idea what human genitalia looks like, close up, from within a goldfish bowl? It?s terrifying, I can tell you. But I expect that they think that I?m oblivious to what they are up to, what with my three-second memory and all that. Rubbish. We Goldfish, as members of the Carp family, are one of the most intelligent of fish. Oh yes, we know, we remember. Think of that next time you are doing something you shouldn?t. I?m not saying it?s wrong for men to dress up as women but just don?t except to do it without us noticing. If I could accurately communicate to you some of the things I?ve seen, well, let?s just say that some people aren?t quite as prudish as they seem. Ha ha.
So, my home, my life inside a Goldfish bowl. It is a perfectly circular glass bowl with some fake plastic seaweed, a fake plastic Mermaid, and a fake plastic treasure chest. You know, all the things you commonly find scattered about at the bottom of the sea. And that?s it. My home. Nothing obscures my view, except to the rear, where a photo of the happy couple leers down at me all day long. I obviously don?t merit any oxygenated water either, so from time to time I have the added humiliation of being tipped into a bucket of lukewarm water to flop around helplessly while the faces refresh my bowl. A cursory wipe of the glass and then I?m chucked back in, by the tail. Just like that.
Oh, did I not mention the multi-coloured gravel that carpets the bottom of my bowl? It?s great! Each lurid piece of stone is exactly the size and shape of my mouth. I?m so grateful for the opportunity to choke on it every time I go to feed. Once, when I had failed to cough a piece (a red piece) out and had floated to the surface, belly-up, the lady face squeaked and squawked until the male face plucked me out (by the tail, obviously) and tried to squeeze it out of me, like the last piece of toothpaste. Well, I must be thankful I suppose. It did plop out eventually. But you understand why I?m wary of bottom feeding (my natural instinct) and instead gobble up as many fish flakes as I can before they sink to the gravel.
There are other dangers too. When the not-so-happy couple embark on one of their drunken and quite furious rows, the male face usually takes it upon himself to bang his fists on the shelf upon which my bowl sits. Have you ever been through an earthquake? No? Well try and imagine being submerged in a swimming pool full of rocks and boulders big enough to crush your head while the world around you shakes like an alcoholic at closing time. That and the male?s threats of; ?Flushing that fucking fish down the toilet.? To her credit, the female face usually shrieks at this and grabs my bowl protectively, sloshing water as she staggers around the room in hysteria. It?s quite a giddy ride I can tell you, and if it wasn?t for the obvious dangers I must admit I quite enjoy it.
Speaking of which, I hear that flushing is the method of choice for the disposal for my kind. Ha ha., it does make me laugh. I understand that it takes repeated flushing to purge us from the toilet into the great sewer in the sky. Don?t the faces know that our swim bladders remain inflated after death, so only a really brutal amount of flushing and poking and cursing will send us down the u-bend? I imagine the scene often, to raise my spirits in my more melancholy moments you understand.
So next time you open a gossip magazine and read the whining of xyz celebrities about having to live their life like they were in a Goldfish bowl, think of me. Think of me, will you, eh? Think of me.
? 2000 Martin Horton
Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to have grotesquely distorted faces peering at you with unconcealed disgust? Well it?s a daily occurrence for me. It?s not my fault, but every time I have a shit it trails along behind me like a thin tube of snot until, like pubic hair, it gets too long and falls out. I can?t help it but the faces never tire of pointing at me and sneering. Once, when my line of shite was so long it nearly circled right around my bowl, I heard one of the faces speak of cutting it off with some scissors!
Oh sorry. You look confused. I guess by the title of this story that you expected to read about the dreadfulness of someone, a celebrity maybe, whimpering about their lack privacy. I apologise for that. Let me explain. My name is Jaws. I am a Goldfish.
My first memory is of being jostled around a plastic bag at a fun fair. Fun fair? Don?t make me laugh. Fun for you maybe, but think of us Goldfish. It?s not much fun being the prize for some idiot who managed to hook a plastic duck off a revolving table. The fucking indignity of it! Anyway, my new home came to be in the house of a couple of newly weds who, I shudder to say, seem to have less shame than someone who?s licks shit off a Rats arse. I mean, they screw everywhere, all the time. Even on the shelf where my bowl sits. It?s disgusting. Because of the curvature of my bowl and the magnifying properties of water, I have to swim around watching (I can?t close my eyes, I have no bloody eye-lids) these abnormally shaped lumps of flesh wrestle around like Sumo Wrestlers with stick thin limbs. And the noise! Oh dear Poseidon, do you know what sex sounds like under water? It?s like the angry bellowing of a steer having its balls cut off mixed with the screeching of a cat as someone shuts its tail in a door. And if that wasn?t bad enough, once they?ve finished their coupling they always seem to feel the need to wander over to my bowl, naked and sweating, and tap at my glass, hoping I think, in the case of the male face anyway, that I might have died. Ha! No such luck for them. Goldfish live for forty fucking years mate! But do you have any idea what human genitalia looks like, close up, from within a goldfish bowl? It?s terrifying, I can tell you. But I expect that they think that I?m oblivious to what they are up to, what with my three-second memory and all that. Rubbish. We Goldfish, as members of the Carp family, are one of the most intelligent of fish. Oh yes, we know, we remember. Think of that next time you are doing something you shouldn?t. I?m not saying it?s wrong for men to dress up as women but just don?t except to do it without us noticing. If I could accurately communicate to you some of the things I?ve seen, well, let?s just say that some people aren?t quite as prudish as they seem. Ha ha.
So, my home, my life inside a Goldfish bowl. It is a perfectly circular glass bowl with some fake plastic seaweed, a fake plastic Mermaid, and a fake plastic treasure chest. You know, all the things you commonly find scattered about at the bottom of the sea. And that?s it. My home. Nothing obscures my view, except to the rear, where a photo of the happy couple leers down at me all day long. I obviously don?t merit any oxygenated water either, so from time to time I have the added humiliation of being tipped into a bucket of lukewarm water to flop around helplessly while the faces refresh my bowl. A cursory wipe of the glass and then I?m chucked back in, by the tail. Just like that.
Oh, did I not mention the multi-coloured gravel that carpets the bottom of my bowl? It?s great! Each lurid piece of stone is exactly the size and shape of my mouth. I?m so grateful for the opportunity to choke on it every time I go to feed. Once, when I had failed to cough a piece (a red piece) out and had floated to the surface, belly-up, the lady face squeaked and squawked until the male face plucked me out (by the tail, obviously) and tried to squeeze it out of me, like the last piece of toothpaste. Well, I must be thankful I suppose. It did plop out eventually. But you understand why I?m wary of bottom feeding (my natural instinct) and instead gobble up as many fish flakes as I can before they sink to the gravel.
There are other dangers too. When the not-so-happy couple embark on one of their drunken and quite furious rows, the male face usually takes it upon himself to bang his fists on the shelf upon which my bowl sits. Have you ever been through an earthquake? No? Well try and imagine being submerged in a swimming pool full of rocks and boulders big enough to crush your head while the world around you shakes like an alcoholic at closing time. That and the male?s threats of; ?Flushing that fucking fish down the toilet.? To her credit, the female face usually shrieks at this and grabs my bowl protectively, sloshing water as she staggers around the room in hysteria. It?s quite a giddy ride I can tell you, and if it wasn?t for the obvious dangers I must admit I quite enjoy it.
Speaking of which, I hear that flushing is the method of choice for the disposal for my kind. Ha ha., it does make me laugh. I understand that it takes repeated flushing to purge us from the toilet into the great sewer in the sky. Don?t the faces know that our swim bladders remain inflated after death, so only a really brutal amount of flushing and poking and cursing will send us down the u-bend? I imagine the scene often, to raise my spirits in my more melancholy moments you understand.
So next time you open a gossip magazine and read the whining of xyz celebrities about having to live their life like they were in a Goldfish bowl, think of me. Think of me, will you, eh? Think of me.
