I still clearly remember the bright orange goldfish jumping all over the yellow floor. "Even when I was very young, did I already feel that living was like a goldfish out of water, struggling to breathe without a fishbowl?"
It was April of my third year in middle school. I have a much older sister, and that day was her wedding day. After the wedding, I thought my two aunts had gone home. But suddenly, they burst through our front door as if breaking it down, frantically calling for my mom and me. My mom, who was always sick and lying in bed, had pushed herself to attend her oldest daughter’s wedding. Now, she was lying down again, exhausted.
“Get up! You can’t just lie here!”
They pulled my mom up and told me to come with them quickly. I didn’t want to get involved in my dramatic aunts’ business.
“From now on, you’re the oldest daughter. You need to step up,” they said.
Whenever something happened in our family, my aunts always acted like it was their own problem. They visited almost every day, taking care of my sick mom as if their lives depended on it.
They dragged my mom and pushed me along to an apartment complex. It wasn’t very big. They told me to ring the doorbells of the apartments on the first floor of the first building. I didn’t know why, but I started ringing them one by one with a worried face. When I rang the sixth doorbell, a thin, kind-looking woman opened the door.
“Who are you?” she asked.
Just as I leaned my head in to look inside the living room—
“Who is it?”
It was my father’s voice.
I froze. Then suddenly, my aunts pushed the door open and barged in. My father stood up, surprised. I stepped back. When my mom saw him, she sat down in a chair as if she had given up. My aunts pushed the woman. My father looked at me as if he wanted to say something, then quickly left. The thin woman yelled,
“Who are these outsiders? What are you doing here?”
“Outsiders?”
My younger aunt grabbed her hair. The older one started hitting her. A fishbowl nearby fell over and broke, and all the goldfish were swept out like a wave crashing onto the floor.
The goldfish scattered among the broken glass, jumping and flipping as hard as they could to stay alive. I stood there, staring blankly at them, watching where each fish jumped. The goldfish jumped around wildly beneath the feet of people fighting. I found an empty bowl and began picking up the goldfish one by one. Were there any under the furniture? How many goldfish were there? I didn’t know. I picked up every one I could see and went out to the apartment hallway, holding the bowl.
“That poor child…”
One of the neighbors watching the fight said, then pulled me into her apartment. I sat her couach, counting the goldfish—struggling just like me—at the bottom of the bowl: “One, two, three…” I cried quietly so no one could hear.