The room with all the fish tanks

First of all, there are too many fish tanks back here.  They are probably left over from when my mother decided to collect aquatic animals. She's never done a damned thing by halves.

Wall to wall and all different sizes. There are more than a hundred and all arranged like a maze. I wander between them. I'm not sure where the light comes from. 

I like to stare at the swimmers with their different shapes and colors, but they don't seem to care for it one bit. They bump their noses against the glass, trying to get at me. Some of of them are pissed enough they're smashing themselves into bloody messes. Some of them are spitting.

I guess I'm meant to care for them. Feed them, keep their walls clean, don't let them eat each other.

It's not that easy, though, when one of the damn things grows at an exponential rate and flops right out of his tank and into the next one with his multiple rows of giant, razor teeth gnashing away at whatever it lands on. 

And this other one, the one that looks like a giant earthworm has big, brown, thorny teeth. It flops about as well, but takes a little care to preselect his victims. I suppose he must go by smell. He hasn't got any eyes.

The water splashes all over me, and now I smell just like them, and that's no good because there's not enough time to sort out how to avoid the earthworm. He has preselected my left arm. (I am left-handed. I need that arm.) He latches on with his big thorns deep in the fleshy part, right over the scar I got when I was twelve and I burned myself with hot oil while cooking french fries for the siblings. 

Let me believe there's no pain, I tell myself. And I must be a magic person, because there is no pain. There is just my arm and the fish. 

And all the teeth. Those are definitely there. 

I raise my other arm up to cover my eyes just so they don't betray me into thinking there must be pain after all. If I can't see it, I can't feel it.

And that's all there is to that.

Cross Words

Some plumbing or other seems to always be clogged, and that's the biggest thing I'll recall later, but right now...

Right now, it's the bathtub. Only, it's not filled with water like normal. Nothing's backing up, and nothing's swirling around my ankles as expected. It's just stuffed with various pieces of firewood and newspapers. Bone dry.

And something else about the newspaper, I think somebody was trying to read it to me earlier, but he couldn't read it, and I tried on my own, but that wasn't working out either. Shame. I'd really like to settle down and do the crossword.

I'm not dressed yet, but somebody's banging on the door. I think it's one of the siblings. Or maybe the landlord. (Do I have a landlord?) And that reminds me of the line in that old Metallica song that came out when I was fifteen.

"Power wolves beset your door / hear them stalking" 

Am I 15 again? Is that why the siblings are here? Am I late for work? Am I late for school? Are the siblings late for school? Did I do my homework? Did they eat breakfast? Are they even dressed yet? Do I have money for gas? 

SHIIIIT!!!!!

Later, my mother would make a big damn deal of babysitting my kids. She'd tell her friends about the sacrifice she was making for me, for my kids, so I could get to work every day and hold down a job and get the rent paid, because, let's face it, I couldn't do it without her help.

She was right, but let's talk about when I was fifteen.

Priorities

I don't know whose child this is.

Probably somebody will come looking for him. Maybe. In a minute some frantic mother will come screaming his name desperately, and she will be so relieved to find him hanging out with me, unharmed, laughing, and I'll just hand him right over, because I really have more important things to do than keep up with anybody else's kid.

Papers to write, team members to review, surveys to read, oil to change...

It's not like I can go anywhere anyway, because the floor actually is made of lava, and this little booger-eater has stolen my lava-proof flip-flops and is strutting around all pleased with himself. He thinks he's cute, but those are my favorite flip-flops.

Where is your mother, kid?

Okay, I guess you can sit with me. We'll cozy up together until whoever misplaced you comes to find you. We'll point at passersby and pretend we're on a spaceship, and if we're good, really really good, we'll find some ice cream.

What else have I got to do?