Nothing stays the same
A dreamy week, full of memories of guineapigs, floating fish and my changing world. Taking a deep breath for tomorrow.
Omo, the snowy white guineapig, pink eyes, strangely alien in 1968. Omo, making the Great Escape, her fluffy frame hidden from us for days. Why has she left? Grief and confusion consume me. I am eight years old.
Moonrise – a shudder of silver through my suburban windows. Squeak – a tiny, mini-mouse sound. Slicing through the dark, a poignant pink passes the apple tree, reaching for me. Is this pin prick a trick of the light, or Omo, back for more lettuce? The lawn is cool under my feet. Damp strands of grass nestle between my toes. This midnight carpet soothes my mind and consumes the fear of being out and about after midnight. My eyes, once shrouded in sleep, are alert now. It’s face-off time. Her pink eyes. My bright eyes. I extend my hand, slowly, just a few inches at a time. The lettuce is cool and crisp and, oh, so tasty. I know this, it was the guest ingredient in Dad’s tossed salad last night. This is the good stuff. The leaf curves on the dip of my palm, enticing dear Omo home.
*
Pet free for a decade, until my aquarium. Fish lack the frantic frenzy of the demands we make on ourselves. Fish are fine to watch awhile – they have a nonchalance they sets them above the human race, stuck in their terrarium, gasping rationed oxygen. It’s the 1980s – a world of riots and new romantics, soulless yuppies, yipping and yapping in wine bars, far away from my world. Walking late night streets, watching the shuddering remains of banners burnt by jobless folk looking for a reason to believe. The gutters of Kings Cross are part of my world, but not all.
Back home, my fish perform a nightly ballet for me. They splutter through the make-believe coral and check again the empty treasure chest. A dance with grace, that displaces the worry that my world winds around me, with its redundancies and recessions.
My fish are terracotta and translucent indigo, shimmering in the late-night light of my Bloomsbury street. Perfect pets. Reliable, until they leave me. One day, all four are found floating freely on the aquarium’s clear water. I shed a tear for the loss, but never replace them.
*
Forty years later, now residing and hiding in a terrarium of my own making, where the oxygen is clean and the blue spheres of heaven cast a hopeful glance on the little future I have left. I have planted flamboyant foliage, with a fragrance of Eden, and tapped into God’s own waterfall. It drips silver droplets onto my feet, as I dip my toes into its cool, deep waters. I pluck pomegranates and pineapples from trees, laden with bounty for me and my friends.
Outside, dark nights draw in more quickly than before. There’s a murmuring violence that promises the destruction we dialled up years ago – a future we made for each other. For now though, breath deep the perfection of this fragile terrarium.