A Fish Called Jenny
by Bronwyn Elsmore
Wordcount: 1122
Genre: Light Reads
Synopsis:
Annie was prepared to believe that one who could quote the Parrot Sketch with such an impeccable John Cleese accent was a mere step away from semi-divine status.
First 500 words:
“Remember,” Joanne had said as she went out the door, “no fly-spray in the room, and don’t over-feed her.”
“Don’t worry,” Annie called in reply as her flatmate threw her bag into the waiting car. “I’m sure I’ll manage – go and enjoy yourself.”
How difficult can it be, she asked herself as she watched the car gather speed down the block, to look after one goldfish for fourteen days? Really, you’d think Joanne was putting the task on a par with taking over the management of the Whales and Dolphins Watch company that operated out in the bay. It’s a goldfish, she repeated to herself, the following day. Not an orca, not even a minke or a pilot whale – just one little fish that would hardly make a snack for a kingfisher.
Yet, here she was, barely three days later, looking into the bowl to see Jenny Fishley floating near the surface listing drunkenly to the port side.
Annie prodded the fish with a finger. Perhaps it was asleep – she presumed fish slept – and just needed a little stimulation to resume its regular laps around the bowl. Jenny Fishley flopped to starboard, but otherwise remained motionless.
As she worked throughout the afternoon on her class plan for the following term Annie kept glancing at the fishbowl, hoping to see the red-gold shape once more circumnavigating its small world. Instead, Jenny hung in much the same spot.
A further prod failed to provoke a response. Why didn’t Joanne have a cat instead? A sick moggie had dull eyes and its tail dropped, and it would probably say meeow in a significant way. Annie figured she’d probably be able to pick an ailing dog too, but there was no point feeling a goldfish’s nose to see if it was wet.
She pulled an empty pickle jar out of the cupboard, filled it with water, and lifted the floppy body from the bowl. With the jar tightly lidded and wedged into the pannier of her bicycle between two towels, she pedalled the three blocks to the shopping centre, and parked in the stand provided outside “Vets’N’Pets”. It was nearly closing time, but she slipped in through the door as a large Doberman led a man outside with enthusiastic haste.
She had never been inside before, though she knew it well from the times she had stood outside and watched kittens playing in the window. She’d talked to Joanne about getting one, arguing that a pet you could do something with was more fun than one that merely opened and shut its mouth without uttering a sound, but her flatmate had protested about the danger to Jenny Fishley, so Annie let the matter drop. Still, she felt the irony of the situation as she went to the counter.
In the surgery, Steven Douglas Neville (BVSc Massey University 2010) took the jar from her hands.
“Carassius auratus,” he said, “looking decidedly, er, unwell.”
[addtoany]