Justin Green
“Quite frankly, you haven’t had to be responsible for anything, so your mom and I decided to buy you a fish.”
I was confused. Was this some kind of trick? Am I being rewarded for bad behavior? My dad then went on to explain how to properly care for the fish and what needs to be done. I was responsible for feeding and taking the pH of the tank. This was gonna be a breeze!
Long story short, it was not a breeze. After a month, I was tying a wood chip around Nemo in order to give him a proper sendoff. The woods were quiet and only the sound of the tears running down my cheek. I placed Nemo at the front of the stream and whispered the prayer for the dead, wishing him a happy life. Even though he had never spoken a word, this was the loudest I could hear him. He was now able to live a happy life, hopefully with a more responsible owner than me. Once my mom started to see Nemo pass up the stream she left me to sulk alone. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was angry at the world. I thought throwing a rock into the stream would cure all my problems. Instead, the water displaced by the rock, splashed all over me and my pants. I soon started to feel my legs shaking due to the coldness of the fresh stream. I ran as fast as I could through the forest, but carelessly slipped over a tree branch. I looked up to see that my wet pants were now covered in mud. I screamed hoping nature would listen to me and give me the day off. It didn’t. I continued to walk up the path to my backyard when all of a sudden, a bird laid its waste on my head and it started to reap down onto my shoulders. I sat on the cold Kentucky Bluegrass, while the rain showered over my head, not even noticing the mess I was.