Goldfish

Present

The night rain danced over the windshield, taunting my driving, my ability to make it here. I feel terrible, I really do. The one person who did nothing but love me is lying on our living room floor, dead. He's lying there because I couldn't bring myself to tell him the truth. I couldn't do it, I know it would have been too painful for him to process... so I killed him. And now I'm sitting here in your room, spilling my guts out to you. Yeah, I know you're not a priest or really any religious figure that could save my soul, but honestly, I don't deserve the saving.

A normal person would be asking for forgiveness for stealing from their family or for taking something that didn't belong to them, maybe an occasional adulator here and there. I; however, have murdered more people than the fingers and toes on my body. I wouldn't be able to tally them up in my head.

"It's ironic isn't it?" I ask the nurse standing next to me, her face overwhelmed attempting to process everything I just told her. "My mother died during childbirth and I spent most of my childhood helping my father commit heinous crimes against women only to be the one to take his life. Crazy to think really," I let out a sigh as another contraction wrecks my body. "My family

went around in circles killing one another and here I am, a girl who killed both her parents, about to be killed by her own kid. I know it's not fair to unload all of this on you, you're just a nurse, but I feel my time coming. I'm weak, I'm not going to make it out of this room.

You probably think I deserve what's about to happen to me, but please don't take that out on my baby. He deserves an opportunity to grow up in a home filled with love instead of violence."

The doctors rush in. "Okay, big push dear. Lots of them."

I begin to push, watching as everyone in the room runs from one end of the room to another, all waiting for my boy to arrive. I watch the nurse I spilled my life story to back away and leave the room unnoticed. She's probably on her way to find the authorities. I don't blame her. I can't blame her, I just confessed to helping my father murder his partners and to his own death. It's not like it matters anyway, like my own mother, I was always meant to be taken out in this process. Fifteen years ago my mother died giving birth to me... and today, I was going to die giving birth to my own.

The nurse looks over at me.

"Do me a favor," I say feeling my heartbeat slow down in my head. "Name him after his father, and then throw him in a fucking river." I push again. "Name him, Christian."

Flatline.