Fishies

The fishies talk to me, they always have. I've always known they were there, watching, waiting…but they scared me in the time before. Now I know that it's important to listen to them. When my daddy fish took me from the time before, I suddenly understood the fishies and they don't scare me anymore, even when the bad fishies come and make me scream, or scratch myself till my blood runs all over the floor. Sometimes I scream and scream and the fishies scream with me, it's so much fun!

Other people like to pretend they don't see the fishies, but I know they can, they just feel like I did in the time before, that the fishies mean they're bad or wicked. In the time before I would have said the fishies were really symbols my mind used to interpret information that I received from the collective unconscious. Freud would have said that they were hallucinations brought about by penis envy or an elektra complex, but we all know what he did with that cigar, so who is he to talk?

Fishies like bright colors but sometimes the colors get so bright that I have to turn them off 'cause they hurt my eyes. Or sometimes I'll make a pretty color so bright that it makes people do funny things. The fishies like it when I do that. Sometimes I think that if I make everyone's colors brighter and brighter, maybe they'll glow so bright that the daddy fish will find me again. Frosty says this is a bad idea, but I really wish the daddy fish would find me again. Sometimes I'm so lonely I cry and cry until I have to scratch my eyes out to stop. The fishies don't like it when I do that though 'cause then I can't see them any more, so I try not to do it too often, but sometimes the loneliness hurts so bad. They always grow back anyway, though it makes me hungry when they do.

Sometimes I want to find someone and bring them over from the time before. Frosty says it's bad to do that, that the Prince could break me if I did that. Being broken hurts. I was broken once, when the daddy fish brought me over from the time before. Sometimes I can put myself back together for a little bit, but it's hard and it makes my head hurt if I try to do it for too long. It's more fun being broken anyway, though it hurt when it happened. I wanted to become fishies like the daddy fish did, but I haven't figured out how yet. Maybe he'd be proud of what a clever girl I was if I could do that and he'd come and keep me and hold me and stay with me forever! Wouldn’t that be nice?

Frosty is my friend. She owns a bookstore and she never ever ever tells me that the fishies aren't reall, even though she never tells me that she can see them either. Frosty lives with the funny exploding woman who makes interesting stinks. I like her a lot too but she yells too much and always is more interested in talking about the alchemists instead of the fishies.

The fishies seem scared lately, like something bad is going to happen soon, but they won't tell me what it is. It scares me sometimes and makes me want the daddy fish even more. When that happens I sometimes get mad and taste people. I drink and drink until they're all gone and that makes me sad sometimes too 'cause they'll never be fishies when I do that. Sometimes I rip them apart with my fingers too. I can make my fingers real sharp. Frosty tells me that some people can even do more, like turn into bats or wolves and if I try real hard to learn I might be able to become a fishy too someday, like my daddy did.

I hope so, because if I were fishies I wouldn't be alone anymore…