Spilled Goldfish

Laughter reverberated about the room with the excitement and speed of a superball hit inside a racquetball court. The squeals would elicit calls of 'Settle down!" if an adult was nearby. The rapid pater of young feet on the floor sending joy filled bodies into spinning torrents careening off chairs and couches solicites envy from Tornados in the Midwest. How a house built solid with lumber, nails, drywall, and fixtures could shake and rattle so by such small creatures mystifies. The vibrations may emanate less from the physical gyrations and more from the emotional cheerfulness. The capes of the young superheroes flew rippling and flapping behind the toddler brothers. One boy of five carries a short silver flexible sword in mock non-threatening battle exuberance. The second boy almost three ran imitating in all his worth.

The two form a Cooper pair. They are inseparable in their superconductive discovery of life. The older leading with the younger following the two always linked. They are never far apart. Their existence having become entangled. One without the other inconceivable. The vocabulary word 'love' is not possessed yet by the younger and yet the feeling fills his being for his older brother.

The storm of their movement in the confines of the living room builds to a crescendo. The swirling movements of their tiny bodies widens. The furniture groans under their bouncing about as pedestal legs are heard scrapping along the hardwood floor. Objects that look to balance so sturdily begin to tilt and rock. That flower filled vase offering warmth rebirth color to the room on the coffee table teeters back and forth in an unsteady precarious motion. What when placed there gave a sense of permanence and joy now cries out for rescue. The petals of the flowers shiver in fear under the strain of the young boys' enthusiasm.

The crash silences the room. All motion ceases. The youthful storm circulating in the room slips into the place exemplified by the post storm end of day still quiet darkening gray blanketed high plains. The minds of the boys must readjust. They are bewildered. What just happened? Confusion reigns. They see into each other's eyes yet the answer does not lie there. They move toward each. Reaching out they take the hand of the other. They are inseparable. Now their superhero courage returns and together they survey the quieted room. The flowers gaze peacefully back at them still secure in their upright vase filled with nourishing water. The soft chair is askew but intact. A couple of pictures may need a little leveling while remaining hanging on their hooks. The boys pull each a little closer to the other.

There they see it. Near them a widening puddle of water on the waxed floor. Chaos and disorder that is not meant to exist in this form. Intimately intermingled with the wetness are shards of glass. Small and larger irregular crystal knife edge pieces of glass. They signal a bad combination for small boys in stocking feet. Best that tender feet stay well away from the water and cutting glass. But there too in the thinning moisture and thickening piles of glass two golden slippery fish can be seen. They flip and flop their tails wagging alternatively at the wet floor and the dry air. The dry air that they desperately try to draw across their gills with gasping opening and closing mouths round and hungry for oxygen.

The tears of young distress begin to flow. The sounds of joyful play are replaced by the wails of small throats, minds and bodies unprepared to deal with such calamity. Not words just wails for they have not yet acquired the vocabulary or skills to process or solve this problem. There are just the siren wails of alarm and panic. The calls broadcast outward yet go unanswered.

The boys stand there supporting each other in each other's clutch to watch. They watch as the water thins and thins on the floor spreading and spreading free of the glass bowl walls that previously constrained it. They watch as the glass shards gleam and glitter almost laughing a wicked witch cry of threat to shoeless feet. They watch as two fish gasp frantically. They watch as two fish tire and gradually slow and then stop flapping their tails. The fish are surrendering to the air and loosing hope of flopping back into deep enveloping life-sustaining water. Their mouths keep opening and closing silently calling for help even as the boys screams fall silent with the fish.

The boys watch as a deep silence enters the room. A silence deep and complete. An abyss of silence consuming joys, dreams, hopes, bonds, living love, and life. The boys watch hugging each other close as the goldfish take their last breaths of life. The goldfish brought so much pleasure to them as new members of the household. Was it not just yesterday or the day before, it seems so recently, when they arrived. The boys cannot form the words only the emotion in their bodies that something has passed before their eyes all too quickly. The fish could not be returned to water soon enough. The young minds of the boys do not grasp the event. They do not grasp death. They are just discovering life.

The living room is returned to order. The bowl, water, and the goldfish have been tidied up. The rope rug invites the boys to play with their capes and swords. There are small cars to motor around on the rope highways. There are toy tanks to launch projectiles from. There is space on the rug for two boys' imaginations to romp freely. The brothers nestle with each other. They laugh spontaneously in connection and love. They have feelings for each other that the meaning of words are inadequate to describe. Fortunately, they do not need words to know and live these feelings for each other.

Winter warms into spring and then summer. The rope rug is abandoned for lawns and forests and the neighborhood kids. We explore the woods behind our house. There are the cows down the lane and the wild rabbits that munch the manicured grass.

My brother spots a snake in the leaves in a ditch. He implores me to see it with patient enthusiasm. Pointing there and there again. Eventually I do. I'm gratified he supported me and wanted me to share in the sighting.

The most exciting place lies down the peaceful lane with the few homes we live on and across the imponderable highway. The place is home to a family with several boys about our age. The woods surrounding their home is a boys paradise. There are climbing trees and forts. There is trampled earth from so much play. There are sticks and rocks to spark creative projects. There are snacks and refreshing drinks to stave off weariness. There are teams to form. There are games of chase and conquer to play. A place my brother loves to bring me so that I can share in his fun. He wants me by him as we are bound together - him to me and me to him. This a place for us to enjoy.

The imponderable highway stands each day of the summer as a chasm filled with massive drops and boy eating alligators. Practically it is just a road or rather highway connecting towns. A highway with dense trees growing right up to the edge. The intersection of our lane with this highway feels scary. A little boy finds it difficult to look around the massive tree trunks on the highway's side to look for the cars. The challenge to cross deepens as beyond the trees is a rise in the road toward the top of hill. A hill to close for the fast travelers. A hill that makes seeing what is coming fast impossible. The cars come so fast they make my little bird heart beat fast, my eyes big, and my legs move with lightening strides. Each and every time we venture to paradise we must cross this monstrous black highway. Each time my heart races along with my tiny legs. I know what it is to be a squirrel.

The day arrived in the peak of the summer heat when my brother just had to visit paradise. This rare day life had us on separate paths. He ventured forth. Perhaps his cape caught on a tree branch. Or his tornado speed legs failed to form a category five storm. Or the hill was too close and the car too fast. In my mind I don't hear a crash. This time there was no crash just a floppy sound like that made when a Raggedy Andy doll falls from the bed.

In my mind I stand watching as the doll of my brother lays there on the road. He breathes in and out his breath thinning across the pavement covered in gravel shards. In my mind I watch his Raggedy Andy doll body being carried to the hospital in an ambulance. I watch as the doctors can't put my brother back into the fishbowl.

We are severed. I am alone. I am lost. I can not grasp. I'm just three years old. Half of me is gone. Innocence and joy, companionship and brother crushed under a drunkards wheels. A wound that can't seem to heal sixty years on. The tiny vulnerable confused child lives inside filled with feelings and no comprehension. I do my best to comfort and cradle him. But too often I am that lost crying child not the protective soothing person he so desperately needs.

copyright Masoner