Damascus Steel

Chapter Two

Goldfish where for me what mousetraps are for mice, or what hooks are for fish. They mean terrible things, and this alone is enough to drive me away from them.

The first time it happened was when I was five years old- a quiet, inquisitive child is what I was called and I did well to live up to my reputation. As a youngster my parents chose not to take me into pet shops because we could not afford to purchase a pet, and they deemed all fraternizing with animals unnecessary temptation. Indeed the nature of my upbringing was strict and lacking money-wise. I could count on one hand the exposures I had with various animals (not including those I'd learned about from books and television) within my life at the time.

My mom finally recognized one day, that I'd been acting with much responsibility as of late- and decided to treat me. I walked in the pet store, my eyes shining with awe. There where some creatures I could recognize from common knowledge and some I had seen from afar- whenever my mother and I had encountered an animal in the past she quickly shooed me away unless it was a squirrel or deer, allowing only a glimpse of the fur, scales, or shell with which the creature had been adorned.
I took it all in speedily as my mom pushed my prying eyes towards the cheaper betas and hermit crabs- she even offered a moss clump which was supposed to be used within a fish's tank, insisting that it was "somewhat living".
I strode away; an interesting thing had caught my eye. The golden fishes swam in a tank, and I laughed with joy at the awkwardly staring eyes and bright color of the creatures I'd often heard so much of. That was when the mood darkened. The fishes frenzied to and fro, squeamish and worried- frightened even.
I saw they had a dead look in the endless pits of their eyes, and though I felt like helping them, this thought was a mere fantasy. They started to flit within the play structure of their tank, and the glimmering yellow that shined almost white now looked the same as their eyes- a color of deep despair.
At last I bent down and got a better look through the glass at the surface of the water. Being young, I was more than slightly horrified at the dead fish decaying above the rest, it's fins like the fine silk robes of a noble eaten away by green decay.
For it to get so far into the process of decomposing gave me a bad feeling, as the employees would have to check the tank for such regularly as well as feeding the fish and taking them out for customers.
This was when I came to receive the message that these fish were meant to deliver.