As she laid still on the ground,
No longer flapping, her eyes big and round.
The realization hit him that she was forever gone
Cold and dead and no way for her to again spawn.
No he never meant it,
But his deeds were his own.
And now he stood with his eyes filled with tears,
Mouth agape and shaking with unknown fears.
So why did he do it?
For he wanted to punish her and this was his act in a fit.
“She doesn’t play with me anymore!”
Crying he retorted looking at the goldfish on the floor
“She has found a new friend and he’s keeping her busy”
In sobs came the words, the tear’s torrent making him dizzy
“Once I told her to play with me she said no! Her and her friend had somewhere to go.”
Because she had never done this, it made him irate
Confused and hurt, alone he sat unknowingly building up his hate.
Why was she doing it, because he spoiled her new dress?
Or was it because he was stupid to stick gum in her tress?
He didn’t know the answer, perhaps neither did she
But it was happening and any longer he couldn’t let it be.
He used to ask “Are you angry with me Litchi?”
Pat came the reply “Don’t be stupid, things are still as Peachy”
But they weren’t and he knew it, disconcerted he felt.
And the straw that broke the camel’s back came full pelt.
The uneventful evening took light away from noon.
A sleeping monster snapped his eyes open announcing the doom.
A worried boy wandering out in the heat,
Saw what made his heart skip a beat.
Along came Litchi with his friend riding on a bicycle,
After she said no to him “the sun was too harsh to cycle”.
It felt like somebody had punched him,
like the school bully who hit anybody at his whim.
Crying he ran in her house, her mom treated him like son.
Enraged he thought of malice to be done.
One eye looked at Litchi talking to her mate
other saw her Goldfish, gifted by him on her ‘fave’ date
“This one is the best” hugging him she had said
Clearing away the gifts that were on the table instead
“We are gonna keep it with us always!”
Overjoyed said the boy believing in the fixity of the days
With the purity of joy only childhood could deliver
They had vowed to be ‘bestest friends’ forever
“Yes this would be the punishment” he thought with odium in his chest
“She deserves it for breaking my heart” Poetic justice at its best!
Without flinching he pushed the bowl off the table
A loud crash and sound of three breaking hearts, too quite to label
A few second of the goldfish flipping and a lifetime of qualm.
Then came the deafening silence, the most uneasy calm
Wide eyed he stood, too numb to take in the dismay,
Felt like a lifetime with the fish since the last may.
He tried to shout but he was choked by his own fear,
Eyes unable to see, vision hindered by a million tear.
What had he done! For he loved the fish too.
How much before this sombre moment he didn’t knew.
A life gone in a fit of rage,
A folly not justifiable for any age.
His heart pounding, he ran for a bottle for water.
Maybe she will come back and forget of her slaughter.
Too young to know that nothing comes back from the dead
No matter what you did or what you said.
Even back in the water she didn’t open her eyes.
“I know what you did!” said the walls, acting like Litchi’s spies
The walls were closing on him and room felt too small to hide.
They played hide-and-seek here, in this very room where her goldfish died!
How will he ever face her, he worried, thrown out his niche?
No he couldn’t, he wished he had died with her fish.
He always got his wish, is this why he became this way?
Litchi always humoured him or was he too difficult to sway?
He owned her. Litchi was his and his only!
A day away from he had felt very lonely.
Last year when she went on holiday, he had behaved like a brat
Angry at him, “I’ll be back soon” she had said, in the car as she sat
But for this she would never forgive him. “Go and never come back!”
He already heard her voice echoing as he saw light from the door crack.
Dragging his feet out of the house, he saw one last glimpse of Litchi’s face
“We should call him from his house, he would like to come along too”
She chirped and thanked her friend for getting fixed her punctured tyre
Like a ton of bricks it hit him, that he had set afire their friendship’s pyre
Crying he felt the sky revolving around him as he almost fainted.
He reached home and with his unending lonesomeness tried to get acquainted.
He was ready for boarding school he told his overjoyed dad,
And asked to be dropped to Grandpa’s, whom he always considered a bore.
Immediately his car left, drowning the sobs of a little girl,
Who ran behind the car hysterically crying their goldfish was no more!
