Gordon: A tale of heartbreak and adventure


Smiley Blackmore
Copyright 2013 Smiley Blackmore
Smashwords edition
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~~~




You lied to me Timmy. You never loved me. It was all a game to you wasn't it? I still remember the promises you made. I took them seriously, but I'm afraid that you didn't. You've taken care of me, barely, I'll grant you that much, but what about the rest Timmy? What about the rest? 
No, everything has to be about you, all of the time. You're always off with those mates of yours. But what about me? I'm here all alone, in the kitchen, waiting for you to come home. You know I don't approve of them. I never have. That doesn't stop you though, does it? No. 
Where have you been when I needed you? Not here, that's where. I'm still waiting Timmy, you bastard. I'm still waiting. No sooner was I yours than you forgot all about me. You never loved me Timmy. You never will. 
I've seen it for a long time now. I'm nothing to you. You'd rather be with her than me. Don't tell me you don't know! I've seen you two together. You were fondling her Timmy! When was the last time you ever treated me like that? I guess I'm just worthless to you. It was all over for us when you met her, wasn't it Timmy? You bastard! People just prefer to cuddle cats I suppose. After all, no one ever wants to hug a goldfish do they? Such is my lot in life.

~~~

The misery of my life was almost too much for me to bear. The smooth sides of my bowl were an inescapable prison of mirrors. My distorted image gaped back at me from all sides, mocking the failure that I had become. Looking past my sad reflected eyes I could see the lifeless universe beyond. On one side lay the kitchen's yellow walls,  shiny bench, and the wooden countertop upon which my stage-like abode had rested since time immemorial. On the other side stretched the dark green decor of the lounge, its couches arranged in worship around the great image-box.
The universe was empty today and I was alone yet again. Not even that tart of a cat was here today. No doubt she was lying in the sun dreaming of Timmy's fingers caressing her silky soft sides. Timmy and his father had vanished into the void beyond the walls, as they did each and every morning. Not so much as a goodbye ever came my way. His mother was nowhere to be seen either. Perhaps she would reappear later to scorch the carcasses of dead things, or to mix goo with her fingers, as was her custom. But she wouldn't be talking to me. No one ever cared about me. 
All I had was Snail, and he was terrible company at the best of times. All snails are notorious for having painfully lethargic speech, which requires high levels of concentration from the listener. The attention spans of goldfish are even more well known. As a result conversations between our kinds simply do not work. I've long suspected that all snails hold all goldfish in very low esteem for precisely this reason, but I've never been able to hear him out long enough to know for sure. Either way, we'd long since given up trying to get on anymore. 
I'd had to learn to keep myself amused, but there were only so many things you could do inside a bowl. Most of my hours were spent in a vague stupor, trying desperately not to think about my miserable life. Often I'd find myself humming a tune I had once heard. It had broken my heart the first time I heard it. 
How I wish, how I wish you were here. We're just two lost souls, swimming in a fish bowl, year after year.... 
It brought a tear to my eye every time. At least I thought I was crying. It's just so hard to tell when your underwater. I really did miss the company though. Timmy and I had had some truly good times at the beginning, but then he changed. He'd be away all day, and I'd be left here alone with Snail.
That evening the family huddled about the image-box to pay their nightly homage. This was always the highlight of my day, second only to my morning sprinkles. In the moving pictures I could find a respite from the dull torment of sheer existence. Indeed, it was the only thing that kept me going through the long hours of the day. 
That night the sights on the box captured my attention like never before. A huge goldfish took centre stage. I had never seen such a majestic creature. He was dressed in a smart black and white suit, and he swam morosely around an enormous blue bowl. His dorsal fin hung limply, just like mine. His name was Willy and my heart went out to him.
A small boy, no bigger than Timmy, came and made friends with the great goldfish. Willy was so huge that the boy was able to hug and pat him. I was enraptured. Who would have thought that a fish could be hugged! I swear my bowl was filled more with tears than water. The boy loved Willy and Willy loved the boy. It was all so heartbreakingly beautiful. 
My eyes were fixated on the screen for the whole time as the plight of Willy and the boy became my own. At last the climactic moment came. My heart fluttered. Willy was trapped. The boy stood astride a rocky barrier summoning him to leap like he'd never leaped before. Willy sped towards the rocks, then he burst out from the water and arced across the sky leaving a translucent trial of sparkling droplets in his wake. Right over the boy's head went Willy, then he splashed down triumphantly into the great blue beyond. Willy was free. Oh how I longed to join him.
That final scene stayed with me through the night. Even long after the lights were out and the house was silent it kept playing over and over in my mind's eye. I was Willy, soaring through the air, magnificent and powerful, advancing to take hold of the freedom that was my birth right. I would leave behind the world of loveless small boys and find my true path in the great blue beyond.
The following morning I made a decision. Willy had inspired me and it was time to take action. After a few laps of the bowl my muscles were limbered up. I gave Snail a farewell suck then tensed like a coiled spring at the bottom of the bowl. Then, in a rush of pure power, I released all my stored energy and streamed torpedo-like towards the surface. 
The waters parted. Wind stroked my face. I was airborne. Exhilaration filled the length of my body as I hurtled for an eternity through the arid void. A trial of water marked my path behind me and nothing but wide open space lay before me. The cheerless bowl of my past was now but a small blue speck in the distance. 
Then I fell. I plopped awkwardly into a narrow pool of fizzing black water. Everything tasted sweet and sharp. The whole world hurt. I panicked. My fins jittered uncontrollably and a tunnel of light appeared above me. My whole life flashed before my eyes. I heard a scream. The universe lurched violently, and then I was floating free. 
I sunk down to the bottom twitching spasmodically. My vision was obscured by a pulsating rainbow of colors. Several hours later I awoke to find myself floating upside down. I was back in the bowl again. Snail gave me a lazy look with one eyestalk then popped back inside his shell. He was mocking me. I knew it. 
After a few laps the wooziness wore off, but now I just felt lost. Who was I to think I could ever amount to anything? Following Willy's lead was a ridiculous idea. I was a nobody. I was just one lost soul swimming in a fish bowl, and that was all I'd ever be. End of story. If only I'd never tried then the pain of failure would have stayed but a distant murmur. I just couldn't take it anymore. I was such a fool. 
The image-box brought me no comfort that night. It was all about cats: people patting cats, people laughing with cats, people hugging cats. Timmy had the cat on his lap as they watched. The only goldfish on there was one stuck in a tiny bowl being tormented by a cat. It made me sick.
After the images stopped I made another decision. I'd had enough. It was time to float to the top, this time for good. Timmy was gone by now, of course. His parents were quietly chatting in the lounge, but I didn't care if anyone saw me do it. They wouldn't do anything anyway. With that thought in mind I swam to the top and rolled over. To be honest I wasn't exactly sure how it was supposed to work, but I had it on good authority from my childhood days in the aquarium that when one's time had come one floated to the top. Naturally, if one wanted one's time to come then floating to the top seemed a good idea. 
I floated there, one gill sucking painfully against the water's surface, for the best part of an hour before finally succumbing to the normal day's end weariness. A while later, the tug of green filaments woke me. I tried to move but they surrounded me and pinned me down. I had no space to move anyway. My tail was above my head and my face was squished into white ceramic at the bottom. Water barely covered my gills making it terribly difficult to breath. I could hear Timmy's parents whispering furtively above me.
"We can't just flush him and tell Timmy he's still alive!" said the mother.
"Why not?" asked the father.
"You know I don't like lying to Timmy."
"We could replace him," he said.
"He'll know, besides, no pet shops are open at this hour."
"Are you going to tell him he's dead then?"
"It's not lying if I drop him in the pond," she said.
"But he is dead."
"I'll say he wanted to be with some friends. That's not lying."
The whispers stopped. The coffee mug I was in jerked upwards and began to sway. I sucked madly at the spoonful of water covering my head, but I felt dizzier with each passing second. I could feel my stomach churning as the cup rocked back and forth. Pathetic as always, I would soon be the first fish in history to be seasick. That was if I didn't suffocate first. Then, when I could no longer feel my tail and I had abandoned all hope, the movement stopped. It was pitch black, deathly cold, and far too quiet. 
Suddenly the world was inverted. The white cup and green net disappeared and I was in free fall. I fell and fell and fell. It appeared that I would fall forever until at last a dark mirror-like sheet of the water rose to meet me. The impact stung. I spun uncontrollably, blind to everything. Eventually I landed in a soft ooze. My gills greedily sucked in the cool water, but it tasted as if Snail's odor had been magnified a thousand fold and pumped through the aeration system for a week.
After a few moments of waiting in the dark I began to detect faint movements. Tiny currents stirred the waters all around me. A miniscule lump scraped my side then whirred away. I twitched automatically. The ooze beneath me was alive with slithering and scurrying. Something moved under me. I shot up in fright. Maybe I had died after all. Was I in heaven or hell then? Do goldfish even have an afterlife? I cursed not paying attention when I was a child.
Suddenly all the whizzing and buzzing stopped. A wave pitched me backwards. Something was out there, something big. I trembled. Where does one run away to when they don't even know where they are? Another wave buffeted me. An gargantuan creature was nearby. I could sense it twisting and turning. Every so often it would lunge, sending a shock wave rippling through the surrounding waters. I was frozen in place. The invisible shadow circled around me, coiling, probing, and searching. Then it left. The scurrying and zipping restarted as if nothing had happened. I, however, remained stone cold rigid for the remainder of the night.
In due course a soft glow filtered through the murky depths to where I lay in somnolent terror. The light revealed an infinite amber tinged expanse. So far did this new bowl stretch that all faded into blackness before the sides could even be seen. The crawling brown goop below me formed a vast abyssal plain dotted with tall groves of green weed and strewn with algae coated debris. The surface was so high above me that my standards of what counted as deep were altered forever. I concluded that I was not dead at all, instead I had made it to the great blue beyond. The home of Willy.
Normally about now Timmy would be giving me a handful of sprinkles, but he was nowhere to be seen. My stomach complained at yet another of Timmy's betrayals so I decided to go to surface, just in case he couldn't see me. After a fin aching swim I reached the bright waters of the top, but search as I might, there were no sprinkles to be found. Only green blobs and whirring specks populated the surface waters, much as they did at the murky bottom. 
I swam about, searching and hoping, but it was no good. Timmy had forgotten me again. My fins soon let me know that they were not up to such an active lifestyle, so I let myself gently sink. I decided I should find a home. A quiet spot would be nice, perhaps something round, with a snail, just for appearances sake, of course. 
Then I noticed it. The gruesome sight made me seize up on the spot. Writhing in agony was a worm impaled on a cruel curved metal wire. I swam over to help. The poor thing was delirious with pain. I tugged at it a few times, hoping to free it, but it only wriggled even more. All of a sudden I could sense movement behind me. I slowly turned. Rushing towards me was the biggest fish I had ever seen. It had titanic bulbous eyes and they were locked on to me. Instinct instantly took over and I darted downwards as quickly as my tired fins would allow. The fish's cavernous mouth opened, sucking everything before it inside. I narrowly escaped, but the worm and the wire were engulfed.
Then, peculiarly, the fish stopped and looked at me. Pure horror filled its eyes. Like a flash of lightening the metal wire stabbed through the side of its cheek. A cloud of pink blood spurted out into the water. The fish thrashed ferociously in response, then it rushed upwards at great speed and flew straight out of the water. I was stunned, never before had I seen anything like that. 
A moment later a bloody mess broke the surface. The great fish's severed head came slowly twirling down leaving a trial of crimson water to mark its morbid descent. The bulbous eyes gave me one last look before the sinking into the deep. No sooner had it vanished than another impaled worm splashed down to take the place of the first. I could only imagine what foul powers lay behind the malicious metal curve.
The sight had shocked me so much that I didn't even notice the second great fish slink up beside me. My eyes widened in alarm when a hefty fin brushed against me.
"Don't you ever go for them worms again, ay," the fish said. "You gotta be an idiot to do that."
I turned to face him, getting ready to dart away. "Who are..., where are..., what?" I said stuttering.
"Don't you worry your pretty pink fins, my little man," he said. "I aint gonna eat ya. Not today. No, not today anyway."
"Who are you?"
"Me, my little man? Why, I used to be just like you. The cushy bowl. Clean water. A Snail. Fed every day. Every day! Can you believe that?" He gazed misty eyed into the distance before shaking himself back to the present moment. "No, mate. Not anymore. Abandoned. Goodbye! No one wants you Mitch. No one wants you. Go play with the other fishes. You'll have fun. Ha! Can you believe that? Fun. Bloody hell."
"But how can you tell where I'm from?"
He slid up close and looked me in the eye. "Oh I can tell my little friend. You aint got a clue." He looked about shiftily. "Don't you worry little man, I'll show you what no one ever showed me."
With that Mitch the ex-pet goldfish plunged down into the deep. I followed as best I could in the wake of his powerful strokes. When I caught up he was at the bottom sucking at the blood still spilling out of the gaping severed head.
"Dig in mate," he said. "Not often you'll get to eat one of these big boys."
The oozing head stared at me with its darkened bulging eyes. Crawling things were emerging from the mud to join the feast. They scurried into its mouth, slithered through its gills and chewed at its eyes. Mitch was gorging himself lustily too.
"Was he a goldfish like us?" I asked in revulsion.
"Nah mate. Goldfish tastes way different. Perch that was. Right mongrels they are. Never trust a young perch by the way. He might be small now, but he'll get you in the end. They're all bloody mongrels."
He stopped his sucking for a moment and watched me hovering above the corpse head. I felt like throwing up rather than eating. Sure, I'd seen fish killed from time to time on the image-box, but I couldn't bring myself to eat one. Death was so different when met in person.
"Dig in mate," Mitch said. "You've missed the best of the blood now. Go for the critters, man. They're a prick to get normally. You'll wanna make the most of it, ay."
I swam down and lined up a tiny crawler that was scratching at a scale. Its little jaws ripped and tore with gusto. Morsels of chewed fish flesh traveled down its transparent body slowly building it a spine of black lumps. I opened my mouth then hesitated. Where was its home? Did it have a family? Would anyone miss it if it didn't come back from work today? I closed my mouth and sighed. 
"What are you doing you wuss?" said Mitch. "Do it! Go on, get 'em man."
I looked from Mitch to the crawler. I had no choice. Sick as I might feel, I was starving. Opening my mouth again, I darted forward and inhaled the critter. I could feel it biting and clawing as it went down. I squirmed uncomfortably until the wriggling stopped.
Mitch saw I'd finished it. "Shot mate," he said. "They're good, ay?" 
"I think I'm full," I replied squeamishly. 
"Yeah, you little fullas, ay. Its time I introduced you to the boys then."
Mitch grabbed a few crawlers then swept past me towards a distant patch of weeds. He waited for me at the edge. When I arrived he pushed in ahead of me, carving a path through the dense foliage. The light was tinted a deep diffuse green inside the forest of stalks. It was unnervingly claustrophobic for someone who had always been able to see everything in all directions. 
Soon Mitch and I emerged into a clearing. A sunken wooden dinghy, half filled with mud and mostly rotten, prevented the weeds from overwhelming a small space. Even in the relative open provided by the boat a scattered canopy of overhanging green strands maintained the forest's emerald semi-darkness. 
At the stern of the wreck a huddle of big battle scarred goldfish greeted Mitch. I timidly joined the group. They fell silent when they saw me.
"Who's lunch bro?" said one.
"He's my new mate, ay. Fresh out would you believe it," said Mitch.
Another came up beside me and looked me over. "I reckon I could take him."
The others laughed at him. "You aint a big fish you tool, your just fat," said one of them.
"Go suck a snail," he shot back.
Mitch pushed them all away from me. "Come on girls, play nice. The little man's gonna be needing some advice from you friendly blokes now aint he?" 
The group milled about silently avoiding eye contact. Mitch waited patiently. Finally a black spotted one-eyed individual came forward. 
"Boggles my man," said Mitch, "What do you reckon he needs to know?"
The spotted fish goggled me with his one good eye. "Law of the mouth," he said grimly. The rest of the group murmured in agreement. 
"What's that?" I asked.
"The law of the mouth is what governs the whole world," said Boggles in a voice tinged with the sorrowful wisdom of long years. "It is the foundation stone of all life. Understand the law of the mouth and you understand everything."
"But what is the law of the mouth?" I asked apprehensively.
 Boggles continued. "It is a simple principle, obvious in appearance, but sublime in implication. This is the law of the mouth: If you fit in their mouth then they will eat you, if they fit in your mouth then you will eat them. " Boggles looked me over. " By this truth we live and by this truth we die. It is the final explanation, and its why I sure as hell wouldn't want to be you." 
Boggles went to rejoin the group, but Mitch stopped him. "Anything else old fulla?" he asked.
Boggles thought for a while then gave me a another look with his good eye. "Never trust an eel, no matter what it says. They're right mongrels they are. Right mongrels."
I looked nervously around everyone, trying to gage the size of their mouths versus my own body size. It was a futile exercise, there were too many of them and they kept moving. Nevertheless, I calculated that I was probably safe here, but only just. 
The group soon lost interest in me. A game of snail tossing had started on the dinghy's middle seat and two competing mobs were cheering for their champions. I followed Mitch up to watch the contest. When I reached the crowd a swarm of oval shadows appeared on the surface of the water. I froze, but no one else paid them any notice. Boggles and another fish were engaged in a tie breaker. Apparently some things warranted more attention than others in this world.
"What are they?" I asked Mitch, gesturing at the shadows.
"Them's ducks ay, they're all good."
I relaxed, but kept a cautious eye on their flapping feet high above us. The shadows circled about lazily, then one of them dived under. Its sleek black body torpedoed down towards us. 
"Do they normally do that?" I asked Mitch.
He looked up from the sports for a moment. "Yeah, them's just ducks they always..." He done a double take and tightened up. "Swim! Swim for your lives!" he shouted. "Cormorant! Incoming!"
The crowd looked about in panic. The cormorant came hurtling into the centre of the mass. Boggles narrowly missed being devoured by its viciously snapping beak. Fish scattered every which way they could, desperate to escape. The cormorant, having missed its prey on its first run, banked and realigned itself with myself and Mitch.
"Swim dam it!" Shouted Mitch into my face.
The cormorant rushed at us like a thunderbolt. The long beak opened up to engulf me. Mitch pushed me aside and the beak slammed down empty. 
"Swim you fool!" Mitch shouted again before diving off the side of the wooden board. The cormorant flicked its head to the side and snapped. The corner of Mitch's tail crunched between the crushing mandibles. I swam up desperate to help him. "Leave me!" he cried out. "Save yourself! I would've done the same to you."
I watched in dismay as the cormorant threw Mitch about until it had him firmly gripped. Then the cormorant returned to the surface as quickly as it had come. It floated above me for a moment then vanished. Mitch the ex-pet goldfish, my only friend in this new world, was gone.
The clearing was deserted now. I swam about the dinghy for what felt like an eternity, but no one came back. After I had picked absentmindedly at the left over sports snails for a while I decided I was better off alone. I was a little fish in a big pond ruled by the law of the mouth. Perhaps one day I'd be a big fish like Mitch, but even big fish seemed to get eaten here. What I needed was somewhere that I could hide. Preferably something small and round, maybe with a snail.
I headed off and pushed cautiously through the weeds. At the forest edge I surveyed the plain for a suitable place to live. A pile of green tinged wood and garbage caught my eye. It didn't take long to get there. After a few passes around the jumble pile I noticed that the largest log was hollow. A home with four walls seemed like a reasonable idea in place like this so I swam through the haphazard canyons of twigs and trash until I reached the entrance. 
A long dark chamber greeted me. I entered cautiously. The soft light quickly gave way to an ominous murky black. Memories of the past night flooded back. I felt uncomfortable and was just about to leave when something stirred in the darkness. I froze in terror.   
"Don't be afraid my friend," said a soft voice. "Please, be my guest. Stay a while if you please."
"Who are you?" I asked.
"My friend, I'm a poor old soul knocking at deaths door. Please, do give an old man a last few minutes of friendship will you. I've learnt many things in my time. I promise you won't go unrewarded for your troubles."
I inched forward to see who was talking, but it was too dark. "Who are you?" I asked again.
"My friend, I am about to die, you know, I feel compelled to pass on the all wisdom I have learnt before I go. I could offer you the secrets to being the biggest fish in the pond."
"What do you know?" I asked, inching yet closer.
I felt a great bulk stir at the end of the chamber. I thought twice about what I was doing and slowly backed up.
"I know many things," replied the voice, shifting closer.
"How would I become the biggest fish then?" I asked, reversing until I could see daylight beneath my fins again.
"One must master certain virtues."
"Like what?"
One must be strong, fast, ruthless, and remorseless, but above all one must be..."
"Be what?"
"Be cunning," said the voice.
 The instant the words were spoken the great bulk lunged at me. The bow wave shot me out the end of the log like a cannon. A colossal eel streamed out of the chamber in pursuit. I disentangled myself from some twigs then headed straight down as fast as I could. I ducked and dived in ways I'd never thought possible. I whizzed through gaps in mangled bits steel, zipped under broken plastic, and zoomed over decaying plants. The eel crashed after me. No matter how hard and fast I twisted and turned, its nose remained mere inches from my tail. Even as we raced further and further away its endless coiling body was still emerging from the log. 
I slipped through a narrow gap in old hubcap and spied my only hope of survival. A few meters away across open water was a glass bottle. I glanced back. The eel was still negotiating the hubcap. I made a break for it. 
I was swam faster than I had ever done in my whole life. My fins fluttered like electric fans. My tail thrashed like an egg beater. My body burned from the exertion, but I could scarcely feel it. Adrenaline was pumping through every cell, willing me to survive. 
The bottle was quickly getting closer. I risked a look back. The eel was past the hubcap and was gaining too. I still could see no end to its writhing mass. 
A few more strokes brought me to the mouth of the bottle. I squeezed halfway in, but the neck was so tight I could barely move. A flash of pain exploded through my tail. I could feel myself begin to slide backwards. Alarmed, I pushed my fins out and held on with all my strength. The movement stopped. I thrust forward again and popped unceremoniously into the bottle. 
The eel swirled around outside, blocking almost all the light. The bottle shook as the eel furiously attacked it, but no matter how many times the eel smashed its jaws into the glass there was no way it could get at me. Eventually the eel tired of this strategy, wrapped itself around the bottle, and waited with its head at the entrance.
My tail was missing a chunk, but I was alive. My new abode was a dingy affair. Green slime stained the sides and mud coated the bottom. A solitary snail poked out an eye stalk, weighed me up, then withdrew back into its shell. The eel's large eye stared hungrily at me through the entrance to the bottle. I had no option but to settle down for the long haul.
"There seems to have been a misunderstanding," said the eel, gazing in at me.
"Go away," I replied.
"My dear friend, I merely asked you a favor. Have you no love for an old man?"
"What do you know about love? You tried to eat me!"
The eel closed its eye for a moment then looked at me again. "Alas it is true, but seeing you now I don't know why I bothered. For your troubles what I do know about love is this: In this world it is much better to be feared than loved, and that is how one can become like me."
The eel gave up guarding such pitifully small quarry and slunk back to its lair. Stillness descended and my mind passed over my new life in the murky brown depths of the great blue beyond. 
It was all too much for me. I had seen too much death: death from being too small, death from being too slow, death from being too foolish. This was the world ruled by the law of the mouth and no one was safe. Even Willy must have been having trouble here. No doubt he'd try to eat me if I ever met him. 
The melancholic semi-life of the past seemed like heaven compared with the darkness of this place. I missed Timmy and I even missed Snail, but all that was gone now. There would be no sprinkles in the morning. Life was different down here. Another set of rules applied and they did not favor me one bit. 
I felt terribly out of place. How was a small fish like me supposed to make it in this world? I didn't want to be feared, I wanted to be loved. Yet there was no love here. Not even Mitch had promised to never eat me. So much for freedom. So much for my escape, and so much for ending it all. I had wanted to float to the top like a gentleman. Now chances were that I would die wriggling inside someone's stomach. I didn't want that. I didn't want any part of this cruel place. I certainly had no intention waiting for the law of the mouth to claim me. I had no place here. No one belonged here. It was time to do what I had set out to do at the very start.
  I squeezed out of the bottle. The eel was long gone so I swam straight up. The sun was still shining at the top. The water was brighter, clearer, and warmer. I took a long last look across the vast expanse of the world. Then I rolled over and waited. 
The hot sun lulled me into a semi-slumber. I dreamed of Timmy and sprinkles. I could hear him calling my name, promising all the sprinkles I could eat. We would met again in heaven, I told myself, if humans go to heaven that is. 
A shadow passed over me. I opened my eyes. An apparition of Timmy called my name. He held my blessed bowl under his arm. I could even see Snail. The vision of Timmy reached out, scooped me up in a green net, and released me into my bowl. Snail greeted me with a waggle of his eye stalks. Then a flood of sprinkles rained down, carpeting the surface of the crystal clear water. I lazily plucked a few as they floated past, savoring the blissful taste of each one. I was in heaven.
Then the bowl sloshed almost launching me back out into the pond. Snail withdrew back into his shell and I banged into the sides of the bowl. We splashed and swayed continuously for far too long. I was almost sick from all the movement. 
And then I was home. The yellow kitchen smiled at me from one side and the deep green lounge welcomed me from the other. I was alive. I was home. Timmy was staring at me with an giant grin and pouring bucket loads of sprinkles into the water. He had come for me, he had rescued me, he was giving me sprinkles!
"I missed you Gordon," he said with a tear in his eye. I almost died. 
 That night Timmy kicked the cat out, picked up my bowl and set me down on the coffee table. He turned on the image-box and reclined on the sofa next to me. It was just me, him, and Snail. Together we watched as Willy and his family leaped across the screen and splashed triumphantly into the great blue of their home. 

~~~

Oh Timmy where would I be without you and your morning sprinkles? What pure bliss it is to see those blessed flakes flutter down from you gracious hand. Oh Timmy, who would I be without your longing glances and your laughing smile? I promise to always be here for you, as you have been here for me. Oh Timmy, how could I have not seen you, my true friend who loves me? The bond between us shall not be broken.

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About the Author
He's marvelous! I should know. Smiley Blackmore swears he's the author of at least one book on cuddly animals, God, psychology, society, philosophy, the fate of humanity, mental illness, or whatever it is you just finished reading. Half mad scientist, two-thirds eccentric genius, and one hundred percent lovable writer, Smiley is guaranteed to make you laugh, cry and think. Failing that, he'll no doubt give you something to complain about. What more could you ever want?

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