Damascus Steel

Chapter Four

        And it happened again. And again. And again. Goldfish became loathsome creatures in my eyes. I felt like they directed all envy and hatred towards my face- the face that peered at them through superior eyes and superior circumstances.

        The next occasion was at a little Chinese noodle house a block away from my own home. My father decided to humor me as my mother was a thing of the past, long since replaced by alcohol. The family bonding which she always craved was what he said we were out to accomplish. I knew that his eyes only yearned for a cup of cheap americanized sake, but chose to ignore it for now.

             We where sat down at a table with a remarkably kind waiter. The place was rather crowded, and a fish tank rested next to our booth. This one held goldfish. I shuddered and looked through the menu. Fish soup would be lovely- it could give me a little feeling of dominance over the horrific species.

My eyes additionally skimmed the prices, and widened to the size of dinner plates.

"We can't afford this!" I cried.

"Shut it" cried my fa- the man who sat before me. Certainly no relative of mines, sober or not. Maybe it was a mistake, my mother was an air-headed one after all...

My hope gradually diminished to the size of a penny. As the waiter came back around I asked for a glass of water and nothing more. Next thing I knew my father had his beverage and cheeks as red as Rudolph's nose. His unprovoked laughter was a shockingly comfortable noise. His voice driveled on in between hicks.

"Gonna-HIC- getim-HIC!He was theone who made-HIC-her dieputtinmeindebt..."

Barely legible yet I knew he spoke of mother. I was an intelligent 10 year old.

But I became unnerved as he fingered his right pocket. The one where he kept the knife from mother. Its blade seemed able to cut concrete clean in half with serrated edge grooves like mountain peaks. His veiny eye saw the fish tank behind me.

"Damned lonesharkHIC" my father mumbled again. He pulled it out-

"NO!" I cried in a most demeaning and pitiable manner.

I would like to say it hit the mark; those poor animals that I detested so inexplicably... But it missed. Went intersecting through the first scar on my eye making it an x, as though to say, "x marks the spot!" Who knows; if it wasn't so feebly thrown it could have been far worse. I did sustain trauma though, which should count for something. And as my life continued it's eternal reign upon me, my father in jail, my mother dead, and many more things costing friends, family and pets alike- well I noticed a pattern.

The damned goldfish.

But I assume that for the time it took me to recount a portion of this, its quite rather an irrelevant event in the long run. After all, it was many more similar events that lead up to the moment at which I was seventeen- a moment that supersedes them all.