Through a Fish Eye

I was swimming around the tank with my friend Kelpsey like we always do. We talked how eager we were for dinner to come for most of the swim as apart of our routine. We were almost done until we saw the old goldfish swim toward us and asked, "How's the water today?" We kept on swimming until I stopped and asked "'What the hell is water?"'

Was this goldfish trying to mock us? Was it some old fish joke that I was too young understand? Kelpsey didn't have the answer and neither did any of the other minnows. It irked me. I went around the tank again pondering the possibilities. I stopped and looked out of the tank to see our human come through the door. She set her bag down, and came over to look at the tank. All the fish knew that it was the best time of the day: dinner. All the other fish swam to the top to get first pick of the flakes that she dropped in. I would have also went but I was too bothered with what the crazy old goldfish said. I stayed by the wall of the tank and watched the other fish fight over the larger flakes arguing why they deserved more than the other. I glanced over at the human as she sat down on her bed. I had never actually seen her do anything else except come over to the tank and drop the flakes of food that we practically worshipped. I continued watching her just to see little lines run down her face. I had never seen anything like it. Up until that point I didn't even know there were things out there that could blink, but to see that humans can show their emotion through their eyes? It baffled me.

How had I not noticed? How ignorant and heedless had I been this whole time? I didn't know a thing about the person that has kept me alive except that she gave me the food that I venerated. "Thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic...Thinking this way is my natural default setting." I started to swim back to my corner of the tank until I saw the old goldfish by the castle looking up at the brainwashed fish. I swam towards him to satisfy my curiosity.

"It's hard isn't it?" he began before I could even greet him, "' to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out."'

I wasn't sure what to say because I wasn't sure if I even understood consciousness.

"You minnows go in circles every day in this tank simply focused on how you're going to get dinner or when dinner will come, but you never think about sharing, or other fish's feelings, if you even have any left. You've let your tiny little brains become dormant by letting it sit in its default setting. They've been so under used that you don't even appreciate or know of the water around you."

It was in that line that I could feel the presence of the water. Liberation had found it's way to me through an old goldfish. Although I had been submerged in this water my whole life, I couldn't feel it until that very instant. Through the water I saw the agenda in the faces of the other fish. I swam to the wall of the tank and saw the depressing state the human was in. I could see through this small fish eye of mine. My "lens of self" had finally dissolved.