"We are gathered here today to mourn the death of Bernard."
Like he ever cared. He didn't want me in the first place.
"Daddyyyyyy, why did Bernard have to die?!" A young boy cries.
Oh that's rich, coming from that mistake. He's the reason I'm in this mess. Belly up in the toilet, where's the dignity?
"Now Timothy, calm down. All things die, it's the circle of life. Remember your favorite movie, with the lions and the funny monkey?" A woman's voice cajoles.
Circle of life huh? Well actually it's because living things need FOOD.
High pitched shrieks of laughter emanate from the small one.
"Tim! Hush. This is a solemn occasion." The man struggles not to smile himself.
Oh well now you're just making fun of me.
"Mom! I have to use the bathroom. What are you guys doing in here?" A pubescent girl whines.
"Cassandra, Timmy's fish died, we're having a funeral and teaching him about the circle of life."
Clueless suburban mother. All she knows about the circle of life she learned on her back.
"A funeral for a fish? God you people are lame, I can't believe we're related."
"Don't you remember when we had to say goodbye to Sebastian? Oh dear, you were so upset." Puerile girl rolls her eyes at this.
I swear that woman's only got two tones, the one she uses to placate her so-called family and the one she uses to sell Tupperware to the even more facile neighbors. Oh, oh wait. Those might even be the same. Is she even more one dimensional than I thought? And I'm the one about to get flushed down the toilet? They all bear a much stronger resemblance to this toilet's previous occupants than I do!
"Alright, little man, would you like to do the honors?"
So this is what my life comes to, this is the sum of my entire existence. Born in a bowl barely big enough to turn a circle in, manhandled into an even smaller plastic bag, jostled and shaken and abused until I get dumped into yet another bowl, where I am promptly forgotten. Just a flake or two a day, that's all I needed. But no, life means nothing to a six year old, and even less to rest of them.
"But Daddy, where will Bernard go?"
"Bernard's already gone, sweetheart, he's in a better place."
HA!
"But where will he go?" The urchin insists.
"Well honey, he'll go where all water goes eventually, back to the ocean."
The ocean. I'll tell you where I'm going, I'm going into a sewer, where I will most likely be consumed by rats or some other such creature. Or possibly my body will simply break apart before it comes to that. I'll dissolve, as if I never even existed. Not that it could be said that I really existed.
"Ooh, okay. You flush it Daddy"
"Alright. Goodbye Bernard, you were a good fish."
YOU ARE READING
kaidell's One Shots
Short StoryA collection of short stories born from prompts given by clubs or contests.
