Goldfish

Birth

I always knew my father was a difficult man, there was never any question on that. He was the one man in town you didn't want to piss off. My father grew up in the same town he had been born, just as his father, and his father's father. Personally, I never understood it, but we're getting ahead of ourselves there.

My father was born to one of the wealthier families of this old dump people call home; unfortunately, he was disowned as a teen after he was caught sleeping with the maid. When my father was born he had everything; family, money, and power. There wasn't a corner of the town without the family name on it. It was my father's great grandfather who built this place from nothing years ago.

His great grandfather had a vision, dreaming of a place where someone could be anyone they desired. Somewhere people would build their own life and decide their own fate. The man, born in the year 1800, lost his parents during his early teen years. It was the loss of this family that inspired him to never give up, searching for a place he could call home. On June 15th, 1835, he stumbled upon a large plot of land away from everything he'd ever known. A month later, he moved into the small home he built on that land. Shortly after, he called upon some friends to move onto the land with him. A month later, the land was occupied by seven people. August 23, 1835, the land was claimed a small town, and the building of a town hall began.

The town grew fairly quickly, with people flooding in from every direction. People came searching for a place to start over, a place to put up their dream business, or simply, a place to settle down and grow old in. Among all these people, my triple G-grandfather found my triple G grandmother. By 1840 they were wed, bringing in a child in 1841, and my double G grandfather in 1845.

It was my triple G that kept my double G in the town, grooming him to take over the town hall and family farm. The pattern of sticking around stuck, my grandfather was born in 1875, once again, staying to run the family name. In 1905, my father, Christian, was born. In 1923, me.
My father grew up having everything he ever wanted, but the trouble started when he was awoken sexually. I guess the one downfall to starting your own town is the lack of religion rooted in the place. I guess building a town without pre-established Christianity becomes an issue when you don't have people warning children not to touch themselves or have impure thoughts. My father became very active, should we say, at fifteen. Around the same time, his mother had her second and third children, twins. This and the booming town called for babysitters... a playground for my father. Every few weeks a new sitter would come in to care for the twins, and every few weeks my father had a new mate to play with. It was at the age of seventeen that my father met the newest member of the household; a maid by the name of Dolores, my mother.

Dolores came in with a dream of making enough money to buy herself a vacant lot in the town and transform it into her own fashion shop. She came in with nothing but her dreams... and a nice rack. This rack caught the attention of a very horny seventeen-year-old. It didn't take long for my father and Dolores to do the dirty and it certainly didn't take long for Dolores to end up pregnant with me. It was a month into the relationship, a long time for my father to be committed to one person, that my mother found she was pregnant with me. Of course, this wasn't ideal for either of them and so it was decided I would not be brought into this world. My mother took one for them both and had my father push her down a flight of stairs in hopes that I would be terminated. For good measure, my father kicked her when she'd made it to the bottom.

At the hospital, they received terrible news. I was resilient. It wasn't long until my grandfather heard the news of the pregnancy and confronted them both at the return to his home. My father plead to him, but alas, he was thrown out of the house with nothing but the clothes on his back. My father swore he would claim his honor and make his way back into the family if it was the last thing he did. He never did. Years later my grandfather died and left everything to his second child, who he claimed as his first and only.

It was no secret that my father and mother didn't want me. It also wasn't a secret to those around them. Both were placed under watch by concerned neighbors who feared they'd try at my life again, they didn't. I'm sure it would have been easy for my mother to get herself into a fight and have me punched out of her, and she certainly had enough coat hangers around, but something within her changed. She felt it, I felt it. She stopped going out to bars and stayed in. On occasions, she spoke to my father about leaving the town and starting somewhere new. She understood it was his bloodline that had started the town and understood it might be difficult for him to leave. She would paint a picture for him; a new town, just as those who came here, to start a new life. They would be away from my grandfather and away from the judgment of the town.

By the time my mother had sold my father on the move, it was too late. My mother's water broke two days prior to their planned escape. She was rushed to the local birthing site and prepped for labor. My father, feeling cornered and hopeless, decided to attempt to make his way back in with the family. He was unlucky in the department and was thrown off his father's estate. He swore to my grandfather that he would regret it.

My mother, bless her soul, could not tolerate the process of giving birth to me and passed away in the doing. When my father left, she was stripped and placed into a gown for the pushing process. She was taken to a room nearby and placed into a small pool of water where she began to work on getting me out. Somewhere from the time my mother began to push to when my father was thrown out from the estate's grounds, there was a complication. The birthing team rushed my mother to the town's doctor for an emergency C-section. I was brought into the world five minutes later... and my mother passed away shortly after. Mother had lost too much blood from the delivery and was deemed too far gone.

I was only held by my mother once, and she died as she did so.

I was born into a world of no money, and no family. The night I was born, I spent the night with a nurse while my father spent the night in jail and my mother was bagged away for burial. I guess I should have known my life would be hard, but never would I have imagined it would start from day one.