Tropical Fish
by Michael Treder
The man with the mustache was a dentist, and he sat, briefcase flat on his lap, drumming a short tattoo on the case’s leather exterior. He was obviously a smart man; and probably good at his job, and wore a pair of thick, scratched bifocals although it would probably be another six years before he really needed them.
He was Dr. Richard Urbana, though he never made his friends call him doctor, and he insisted his patients call him Dr. Rex, which, oddly enough, was the name of his dog.
He lived alone in an old brownstone deep in the heart of Brooklyn, with his aforementioned dog and a school of brightly colored tropical fish. A red one, a little blue one with long fins, a tan-colored eartheater, and then his pride and joy, a beautiful Harlequin Rasbora who seemed to tower over the other fish in a sort of motherly fashion.
He had always planned on moving the oversized aquarium into his office waiting room next to the vintage Norman Rockwell painting, but in the end, he decided he liked the fish so much that he didn’t want a small group of cavity infested children knocking on the glass, frightening them all into hiding.
So he kept them at his place, and he thought the tank made a proper divider between his living room and dining room and his apartment always smelled humid, like a rainforest, but he didn’t mind.
“Fish are like the perfect family,” he’d say to himself often while feeding them in the morning, “they don’t talk back and usually don’t live long enough to become a burden.” And he’d smile and laugh; a light, quiet snicker and go along his way; but in his heart, he wanted nothing more for them to somehow understand.
Dr. Urbana was single and had been on only a few dates over the past five years, but he was happy living alone, and content, and hadn’t bothered to go on a date in over eight months. He didn’t mind, and in fact, often shied away from women, especially ones he felt attracted too, he was like that, destructive, but, emotionally stable, and despite all beliefs to the contrary, he slept well at night. Most nights.
He’d take the subway home after work, take the long train back into Brooklyn, where he’d sit alone in one of those uncomfortable little, plastic seats, drumming his fingers against his leather briefcase, and he’d close his eyes and maybe do his best to sleep, or at least to think about all the decisions he’d made, or not made, throughout the day.
The trains always smelled of urine, but he did his best to ignore it, and he’d go home, and pat his dog on the head and then he’d sit in a wicker chair in front of the fish tank, watching the little school swim in circles the way they did, somehow envious of their free-will and enraptured by their beauty; especially by the beauty of the Harlequin, she was his favorite, short but agile, like sterling silver, like a water angel and sometimes, just sometimes, he wished he was a tropical fish swimming next to her.
Then, the night of Dr. Urbana’s fifty-fifth birthday, his staff decided to take him to an Italian restaurant across town, an upscale little joint that served Chicken Cacciatore and various sorts of roasted artichokes. His partner was there, Dr. Stumor, and his hygienists and receptionist, and they spent the night talking and laughing over red hill country wine and parmesan breadsticks.
And they brought him a slice of cake, and he made a wish and blew out the candles.
He then, at around midnight, returned home to his Brooklyn apartment after all the wine had been drunk, and all the laughs had been had, and he stumbled through the door and his dog, Dr. Rex, looked up, sleepy, but happy, and Richard Urbana fell asleep in his warm, fresh bed, deep and dreamless.
In the morning, when he finally woke up, in a daze and with a slight headache from the wine, everything in Dr. Urbana’s life was different.
His apartment, the walls, the floor, were all the same, and the world outside his apartment windows went on as normal, but on the inside, his furniture, his possessions, his dog, these things had somehow all changed. There was a woman’s touch to his apartment now, a potted plant here, a jar of rose potpourri, fruity bath beads in the jar by the sink.
The smell of coffee and wheat toast lingered in the air in the kitchen and lace doilies covered all the wooden surfaces, and Dr. Richard Urbana felt strangely calm in his new surroundings, felt strangely alive in his new world.
His dog was curled up under the dining room table, asleep and passive and Urbana stepped into the living room, reaching for the little bottle of fish food he kept beside the tank, and sprinkling a little patch of flakes into his hand, he stepped up to the tank, and that’s when he noticed it, not at first, but after he’d sprinkled the flakes onto the surface of the water.
There was the red one, there was the little blue one with the long fins, even the tan eartheater was there swimming softly in the water, nibbling tentatively at the flakes of food. But, Richard Urbana’s pride and joy, the beautiful Harlequin was absent.
He stepped back from the tank, staring at the clear tropical waters when all of a sudden a voice behind him drew him away, “They’re pretty, aren’t they?”
And he turned and there stood a woman, thin and beautiful, wrapped in his old woolen housecoat, “Yes, yes, they are.” He said, and she pulled him towards her, and he breathed easy, and she smelled humid, like a rainforest, but somehow, he didn’t mind.
