Life in the Fishbowl

    Welcome to the fishbowl, where all of us, humans, live under the tyranny of a million hooks dangling from the sky. Some people don’t call it the fishbowl, because they don’t believe the legends about the glass dome at the end of the sea, but sailors have made it all the way out there and confirmed it to be true before winding up dead. For me, it doesn’t matter either way. We’re here and there ain’t no way out. The only thing we need to watch out for are those damned hooks that catch people and send them rocketing up into the sky. Most of them don’t come back. 

    Your chances of getting snatched by one of them depends on where you live. I mean, they’re everywhere but there’s a higher concentration of them in the city. It’s even worse downtown. We can barely see the sky between the thick mass of lines reaching down to us. They’re baited with all kinds of different things people crave. I’ve seen drugs on ‘em, money, pornos, candy, baseball cards, toys, and promises of a better life; like the ones you read in a fortune cookie. Those are the most tempting if you ask me. I catch myself thinking, “what if there is a better life up there, one where you’re not always dodging hooks or worried about stepping on one laying on the floor. A life without temptations reminding you of what you want but can’t have.” 

    Life is hard enough without those damn things all over the place. It's better out in the suburbs where they’re at least spread out. I think to myself, “what the hell could be so tempting when you live in the suburbs? You already got it all.” Or at least, that’s what I thought until I met Hazel. Yeah, I thought her name was pretty too. She was a girl who looked like she had it all, but we all got something we want more than anything. Catch us on a day when we’re desperate and we’ll be reeling upward to our doom. Or who knows, maybe you actually get what you wanted up there. I don’t know. That thought torments me every day. Then I think about Hazel. 

    I remember the first time I saw her in my neck of the woods, The Dump. No, that’s the name of the club we were all hanging out at. It’s a nightclub decorated like a junkyard that attracts degenerates like my alley cat friends who grew up on the street. I’ve seen a lot of them shoot up into the sky because the hooks offered them something they couldn’t refuse. Benny went up for a piece of bread; we were all starving. Ivan never saw a naked woman before grabbing the magazine. Lucas got hooked on a bag of heroin. He didn’t even want it. He just walked into it accidentally, but the fisherman up in the sky didn't care. When they feel a tug, they reel you in. 

    We go to The Dump because it’s safer there than on the streets. The loud music drowns out the thoughts, the drinks calm the nerves, and the dancing helps us forget our problems. Nothing matters when you're dancing, so long as you don’t step on anyone’s toes. Then somebody stepped on my toes. “Hey! Watch where you're going!” I yelled.

    “I’m so sorry,” she said, covering her mouth with one hand and gently placing her other hand on my chest. Her eyes were endearing and embarrassed at the same time and she was trying to hide laughter at her own clumsiness. Her beauty softened my grimace to the coolest smile I could muster. 

    “Don’t even worry about it,” I said enough to hear over the music but gentle enough not to sound mad. My friends always tell me I talk like I’m pissed off all the time. 

    “Is your foot going to be okay?” She asked. 

    “It’s all good. You’re good.”

    “Okay. I’m sorry.” Then she went back to her friends. I gave her two thumbs up, like a moron. But her friend was someone I knew from school, Becca Thorn. 

    My friends were sitting at a booth, sharing a big bowl of potato chips. It’s all we could afford after putting our pennies together and buying drinks. “What’s that look on your face, Sid? You’re smiling like an idiot,” Ravi said to everyone’s agreement. Oh yea, that’s me by the way, Sid. I stuffed a handful of chips in my mouth and shook my head defiantly. Hazel was on the dancefloor with Becca, dancing unsure of herself and out of place. She looked out of place. We looked like a bunch of hooligans out of a steampunk comic, but she embodied elegance in a cashmere sweater dress. The only awkward thing about her was that she was here, a marble statue in a wasteland of rust and clay. “What are you gawking at sicko?” 

    “That girl over there with Becca. Remember her?” I asked. 

    “Oh yeah, Becca. She’s one crazy broad.” Then he noticed Hazel and his jaw dropped. “If you don’t go talk to her, I will.”

    It took some convincing to work up the nerve, but I finally approached them. “Hey Becca, how's it been?” 

    “What do you want, Sid?” Becca had an attitude. That’s why no one liked her, hot as she was. 

    “I wanna know who your friend is.”

    “She’s my cousin, so keep your bunch of hooligans the hell away from her,” and she shoved me, but alley cats are quick. I pulled her in by the arm and held her under my arm, so it looked like she was hugging my waist. 

    “I hope your manners are better than hers. Like she said, I’m Sid.” 

    “Hazel Rotterdam,” she shook my hand, but the frightened expression on her face ruined the tenderness of the moment; so, I released Becca back to her. 

    “I wanted to apologize about the way I reacted on the dancefloor. People around here just gotta be ready to scrap at any moment, but if I would’ve known it was you, I wouldn’t have come at you like that.” 

    “No, it was my fault. I’m clumsy and can’t dance very well.”

    “Hey, you look perfect to me,” I said, and the corners of her mouth formed a bashful smile. “I want to know more about you, Hazel. If it's alright with Becca, I’d like to walk you home?”

    Hazel looked at Becca, who didn’t like the idea, but also knew it was the safest way to get out of the rough parts of town at night. The freaks come out from dusk till dawn. “You can walk us to the city limits, but no farther,” Becca demanded with a pointed finger. 

 

    We left The Dump later that night. Ravi convinced Becca to allow him to accompany us on our walk. As we made our way through downtown, I led her hand in hand through the maze of hooks dangling from the sky. Hazel held on to her hair, preventing it from getting tangled up on one of the lines. Some of them hung so low, we had to duck under them. We were a few paces ahead of the other two. She asked me about living in such a dangerous place as the city after we made it to a spot where we could walk a little more comfortably. 

    “It’s all I’ve ever known, so I just adapt. What’s it like living in the suburbs? I bet there aren’t any hooks out there.”

    “They’re not as many as here but there are some. We lose people every year and a couple of them actually came back.”

    “Really? What did they say it was like?”

    “It’s hard to say. They all had a different story. One of them said it was just like being in a dream, another said he was being operated on by aliens, and the other man said it was pitch black. None of them were aware of when or how they got back, but they aren’t the same as when they were taken.”

    “Yeah, we get a lot of stories here too. That’s why we can’t be sure of anything anymore. Everyone tells a different story, so we don’t even know what to believe. Maybe there’s glass at the end of the world or aliens pulling the string; either way, I’m still just a guy trying to make some sense of my own existence.”

    “I didn’t mean to upset you,” she tucked her hair behind her ear. 

    “Everyone says that. I just get passionate when I talk. I’m not upset.” I took a deep breath to calm myself down. “So, tell me more about yourself. What were you doing in a place like The Dump?”

    “Believe it or not, I’ve never been downtown. My mother never lets me go anywhere unless it’s with her or someone she trusts. Becca came to visit and invited me along, so I came.”

    “Why would anyone from the suburbs want to come down here? There’s nothing but a bunch of deadbeats, crazies, and lowlifes.”

    “Are you a deadbeat or a lowlife?” Hazel giggled playfully. Damn it was so cute. 

    “Not by choice, but yeah, I am. I bet you don’t want nothing to do with me.”

    “I don’t really know what I want, Sid.”

    “What do you mean? You have everything you could ever want. I bet there isn’t a bait out there to make you bat an eye.”

    “I wish that were true, but I have temptations the same as everyone else. I’m no different.”

    “What tempts you, Hazel?”

    “Would you tell me what tempts you?” she asked. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a note that read: Your parents miss you and want you to come home. The tears welled up in my eyes as she read it. I didn’t even try to fight it. “I’m sorry, Sid. I didn’t know.”

    “Sometimes I think whoever’s up there knows and they’re just laughing at me,” it was hard to talk through the lump in my throat. “But sometimes I wonder if it's true and I just missed the opportunity to ever see them again. I’ve been walking around with this note for ten years, wondering if I made the right choice.” Hazel stopped walking and gave me the warmest embrace I never had. I figured this is what a kid must feel like getting hugged by his mother when he skims his knee. 

    She looked me square in the eyes and said, “I wish I knew what to say to make you feel better.”

    “Yeah me too, but hearing you say that felt pretty good,” we both laughed, aware that Ravi and Becca were watching us. For a little bit, we walked in silence. I think she was probably working up the courage to tell me what she really wanted. It's scary, you know. You don’t want to sound stupid or shallow for wanting something that other people don’t care about.

    “I don’t know if I’ve ever been happy, like really happy,” Hazel finally said. A single tear fell out of her eye, but she wiped it before it even caught her cheek. “You probably think I’m crazy because I smile a lot, but I act the way that I do because I’m supposed to. It’s not because I like to.” 

    “I guess it's hard for me to understand, yeah. It’s hard for me to understand how a beautiful girl like you, who has it all, could be unhappy. Like what hope is there for a guy like me who barely owns the shirt on his back? I’m not saying you aren’t allowed to be unhappy or anything, but help me understand, you know?”

    “It’s hard to explain, that’s probably why it's so hard to understand. It's like something scientists don’t understand but are always trying to experiment with tests and formulas. No one gets it, not even them. They’re just convinced by their own hubris enough to be satisfied with an answer, so they can sleep at night. I should be happy. You call me beautiful. My beauty makes you happy, not me. I behave and it makes my mom happy, but not me. I follow the rules, and it makes the world happy, but not me. I feel so lost in trying to please everyone that I can't even figure out what makes me happy.”

    “I’ve always heard that happiness is fleeting. We’ve gotta find fulfillment in the grind and suffering to enjoy those moments of happiness. You get me?” Ravi always said the right thing at the wrong time. Judging by the look on her face, it wasn’t what she wanted to hear or needed to hear. 

    “You’re right.” Hazel retreated into silence until a shriek of horror sounded from within our group. Becca’s hair was caught in a hook, and it was trying to pull her out. Ravi and I held her down as she cried for help. 

    “PLEASE! DON’T TAKE ME YET! I’M NOT READY!” she twisted and convulsed in a panic. “CUT IT! JUST CUT IT OFF!”

    I pulled out a knife from my boot and cut her hair under the hook. It went whizzing up into the dark clouds above with a chunk of her hair. Ravi held her tightly in his arms as she sobbed. Hazel rubbed her back. Even though it was a reality we all faced daily, we all cried a little, maybe at the hopelessness or shock. We didn’t know. We were just feeling it. 

    None of us really spoke much as we reached the fence between the city and the suburb. Becca gave Hazel a hug as she told her, “I’m gonna go hang out with Ravi tonight. I’m still kinda shaken up by everything and don’t want to go back to our family yet. You should be fine once you're past the fence.”

    “I understand. You have fun.” 

    “Don’t let anything happen to her,” Becca threatened me. 

    “I won’t,” I said. Never make a promise you can’t keep. 

    “Walk me home?” She invited me, so I went. Seeing all the white on the houses and picket fences was in strong contrast with my dirty yellow skin from jaundice and smog. “You came to the rescue tonight.” 

    I just shrugged my shoulders, “she didn’t seem too keen on going home.”

    “The people you live with aren’t always family. That may be their title, but they don’t act like family. Ever since my dad died, we’ve all become roommates who have to pretend to be fine. None of it is real. My mom is controlling, and my siblings are doing whatever they are supposed to do, just like me. Becca is not ready to start pretending tonight didn’t happen. They will say, it’s fine. She didn’t get taken up so she shouldn’t be upset or shaken anymore. We just need to chin-up and move on. Tonight is the most real I’ve felt. I actually cried…I forgot how to do that. I thought I had dried up…after he left.” 

    “How did your father go?”

    “Some people say he died, but we never saw the body. We just got a casket. Others say that he got snatched. The scariest story is that he went willingly onto a hook and got carried away. I’d understand why now. I just wish he could tell me what it was like up there.”

    “You sound like someone who’s ready to go too.”

    “What other option is there? To stay and keep pretending everything is alright when I feel all wrong. I’m so miserable I wouldn’t know happiness if it hit me in the face. I’m tired, Sid. Anything would be better than this…but I’m scared of dying.”

    “I could make you happy.”

    “What would you want with me, Sid?”

    “You can be yourself with me. You don’t have to pretend to be happy with me. You can be miserable with me until you’re not anymore. Then, we will see what happens. Maybe you’ll feel better. I’m not always good, you know. I’ve got my low moments, but I’ve got to survive and keep going, you know. I can’t let them get to me. I can’t let them keep me down.” 

    “What if they want to help you? Every one of these hooks is tailored to our wants and desires. What if they want to give it to us? It could be the answer to the questions we carry. Maybe the negative ones are bad, and the promises are good.”

    “That’s a heck of a gamble. I mean, we start out down here for a reason, you know. Maybe the real prize comes when you hold out to the very end.” 

    “Maybe there is no prize at the end, Sid. What prize is there for me when I’ve been the best I could be my whole life and it's not enough? I’m no good for you. I’ll only bring you down.” Almost on queue, a hook came down on a line right in front of her with a note. Hazel pulled the note off gently and read it in front of me. A chill ran up my spine. She turned to me with a full face of tears and said, “Come with me.”

    I couldn’t. It shocked me. I wasn’t ready for that gamble. I didn’t know what was waiting on the other side. I thought of her family. I thought of my friends. I thought of the prize in the end, if it did exist. Everything I had been working for would be gone or gained by this choice. My feet backed away slowly. 

    Hazel gave me the sincerest smile I’d ever seen, wet with tears and sweetness. She mouthed goodbye and waved. Then she was carried away into the great and mysterious beyond. I’ve thought of her everyday since. Am I certain I made the right choice? No. Do I hope she found what she was looking for? Yes, but I don’t know if it's for me. Anyway, I can’t live with regret. I’ve got to keep going to see if that prize will be waiting for me. If not, who cares. 

I lived for something. 

I won’t let them get to me.