Scales

There's a fish in my dresser. It's quite small, and it's scales are silver. I don't know how it got there. Every night I hear it, bumping against the wood as it moves through tides of underwear, all of which has seen better days. In the morning I know I'll open a drawer and find it cresting a tidal wave of odd socks and greying pantyhose.

I've tried asking it what it wants. Surely it would be happier somewhere else? We aren't far from the salt-and-seagulls chill of the real-life open ocean, after all. Even the closet has more space. The scarves could be a kind of waterfall, at a pinch, a multicoloured cascade. It just stares up, mouth agape. It was stupid to even ask the question.

'Agape' is spelt the same way as 'agape', the Greek word for the purest form of love. Maybe when we think we're getting it right, when we are finally casting off the petty degradations that we commonly use to bridge the gap between ‘I’ and ‘you’, we are really just staring, a little slack jawed.

I wonder if it ever wants company. I'd be lonely if it were me, swimming a sea of someone else's disappointments. You'd probably say I already am.