Goldfish memories

14 remembers the first time he saw a floating fish. It’s one of his fondest memories that he holds dear in his heart.

It was when he was 5 and sleeping in his room. Something had woken him and he clutched his stuffed fox toy to his chest, searching the room for anything. Nearby his bed was a lamp with little cut-outs of fish, spinning and shooting light all across his room. 14 always had a certain love for fish, especially goldfish.

As he continued to look around his room, one of the fish lights on his bedroom walls looked different. Whereas the others bend and moved with the spinning lamp hood, this one seemed to dance around the light, moving up and down and even doing a loop-de-loop. Cautiously, 14 slid out of his bed and slowly walked up to the strange fish. This was when he met his first floating fish.

The moment he had walked up to the wall, the fish had swum down face-to-face with him. It was a goldfish, the kind with two tails at the end. It’s big, googly eyes stared at him for a few moments before looking into the distance and swimming around his room.
14, couldn't believe his eyes! There was a fish, swimming around his room, without water or a tank!

In his joy and excitement he began to chase after the goldfish around the room. Baby blue eyes tracked its path and he jumped up and down trying to catch the fish. Each time he thought he was for sure that he was going to catch the goldfish; it bolted out of his reach and darted around the room in victory.

Soon enough 14 gave up trying to catch him and just settled to watch. As if it knew, the goldfish came back down in front of 14 and swam circles around him. This lasted for what seemed like hours. He simply watched the goldfish dance and spin circles around him. Even to this day he fondly says this is his favorite memory of his childhood.

Like any event, fun time must come to an end. After some time the goldfish floated out of its perpetual circle and swam out toward 14’s window. It was thankfully open and it was a simple as wiggling under the window and out into the world. 14 jumped off his bed and toward the window, just in time to see the goldfish swim off into the moon.

He waited by the window a few more minutes just in case the goldfish came back but it didn't seem like it would happen. Reluctantly he crawled back into bed and fell off into sleep, dreaming of floating goldfish swimming all around him.