コヒ

It's been a while since my giant's friend took me from the shelf.

I was born in a glass prison, a paradise with no way out. My first memory consisted of the breaking of my bubble and then my father's voice. "My youngest," he said. "You have awakened." Blue flooded my vision.

The ground held small rocks and what vegetation was present did not grow. It did not yield to picks or biting but it was soft and good for shelter and hiding.

There were several rock formations, my favorite of which was a decrepit thing my father told me the giants called "castle." It held many secret nooks and crannies for the child me to hide in and was private compared to the rest of the public sanctuary space.

I was the last one of my batch, the last of a generation, the last to be born and the youngest of my family.

A beautiful ancient one of blood red spots and a span of greys, my father was the largest force in my tiny life. Though powerful in mind and body, he was hunchbacked and losing color, turning greyer with each passing day, each passing hour. His eyes held secrets of the world's cruelty that he did not share with us. He told me in the few weeks we spent with him what my brothers and sisters and I should know about after we were to be taken from him, just like all the other children he'd sired. Countless hatchlings, some dying from the confined living conditions we'd been brought up in. Outbreaks of rot. Genetically predisposed kidney failure. The gold mist. "There is not much," he said, his eyes clouding over, focusing on something beyond, "Small living spaces. A small life inside small glass walls." His old eyes came back to the moment and told me the cold hard truth I should expect to face. I could hear his heart breaking. "You are the last child I'll ever sire and raise," he told me. "There is not much time left for me."

I took this news very badly. I sat in my corner, curled in on myself for days. "Live well and make them happy," he said. "But know that it is not your fault if they tire of you."

I did not care for the whims of the giants. I could not care less if I tried.

I did not want my father to die. I did not want to be imprisoned for the rest of my life.

My siblings avoided thinking about our future, or maybe it didn't occur to them that this was temporary. I, however, could not stop. The impending doom of being chosen or left to die by the giants' will settled inside my chest like many stones.

The day inched ever closer.

In preparation, the giant outside the glass brought the small transport prisons and left them outside our sanctuary, the place I'd been born and raised. The only place I'd ever known.

One day, all at once, my sisters were rounded up and lifted away. I can still hear their screams as the great blue one took them, one or two at a time, putting their small figures into solitary prisons. It was not yet a day before they were all gone. Their absence became the new normal. It wasn't a full four more before my brothers moved on, ceased missing them. Eventually, no one but my father and I missed their presence. He never spoke of them, but whenever I asked, there was pain in his eyes. More pain than usual. "I know not of what it's like, but your mother told me once they sometimes have each other, living out their days in groups of five or six." That was all he would say about the sisters' later living conditions. I have never heard anything else about my mother, except that I have her eyes and one of her mating colors.

None of my siblings thought about the prisons waiting for us outside the glass. None of them seemed concerned that our father was moving slower and slower or losing his color more quickly than before. Medicine did not rain from above, for there was none effective against old age. Or maybe there was and the giants' cruelty kept them from administering it. Whatever the case was, the anger sat like a red-hot stone in my belly, anger that these giants of size and medicine that treated us like trophies and slaves and decoration did nothing. Could do nothing. My father, for all his years in the service of the giants, would die, decrepit and old and miserable.

The food came on a schedule and they gave us water when it began to stale or lower, the same it had always been.

The third eldest of my brothers, Thirdborn, was the first to receive his colors. His was a golden yellow. He shimmered with delight and enjoyed the attention. He was also the first to lose his sanity. He began slowly to stop trusting the other brothers. He began snapping, biting off pieces. He was the first brother to be taken from the sanctuary.

One by one, my brothers all received their color, a genetic modification the giants had imposed upon us. Blue, green, yellow. Black, red, orange. One by one, they became too angry to be around. One by one, they were removed from the sanctuary. A great blue hand came from the heavens and caught them, taking them away to another glass prison.

There were not many of us left when I finally began to receive my color and, however dull it was, I could not stop myself from snapping at the few who came near. After a while, I could not bring myself to look at anyone without feeling an unprompted, archaic anger. I hid in a corner, behind a hill of gravel. I did not want to be taken away. I was convinced that if I could somehow resist the call of the colors, resist the primal, territorial urges, resist the genetic predisposition that had been handed down through all my ancestors, I would somehow be allowed to stay with my father, the only other one I knew that was sentient and self aware enough to answer my questions or admit his theories about their possible answers. "Why do they stare at us so? How long have you been here? What is my mother like?"

My brothers, even before their colors came, could not hold a conversation with me. They did not understand how I could wonder such things or why in the world I'd like to know their answers or any answers at all. What did it matter when the sanctuary was a paradise and provided for all of our needs when they arose? They spent their days preening and looking at themselves, admiring their own color before the anger overtook them.

I could hardly bear to look at myself. I did not want the spots that looked like my father, or what my father said were my mother's fin colors. I did not want those thoughts that controlled my actions and ruled against my will. I did not want to leave my father. I did not want to leave the safety and familiarity of the sanctuary.

"My son," my father said once, sensing my inner turmoil after I received my colors and before I was taken, "Do not scream and cry when you leave this place. You are not like your brothers. You know what is to come. You know that this is how things must be. Not one of your siblings thus far have asked me the questions you have. I will teach you what I know and you must promise me, swear to me, child, that you will not let others be born into our situation."

I swore to him on my life I'd never sire a child. Not while our people lived in captivity so.

He seemed more at peace after I said this and started teaching me the language of the giants, started from the symbols on the food kept in a large prison container just outside the sanctuary glass.

That is how I came to understand giant writing.

Their words were still too fast and low for me to understand, but their writing? Devilishly simple to figure out, once my father laid the groundwork. We passed many days and nights like that, learning the figures and supposed meanings. It almost made me forget about what was to come.

Finally, my father, older than before and more grey, said, "I've taught you all I know, young one. You will be taken soon. I can feel it in my bones. You've grown into the most intelligent of my offspring and I am proud of you, no matter your dull color and small stature."

It's true. I was the smallest, not only of those left, but of everyone left in the sanctuary. From what I could see, my color looked like the absence of brown, dull with hints of spots like my father's.

Now, I am both the smallest and the largest. I am alone.

My father settled on the floor, on the gravel near the remains of a castle in our sanctuary. His grey had never seemed so prevalent. So overpowering.

I heard thuds from outside the glass. A giant was coming. I wanted nothing more than to stay with my father, learning symbols and conversing. I wanted to know about my mother. I wanted to stay there forever.

But the giant grew closer and so did the moment of my and my father's departure, from each other and from this world. The blue hand broke the sky above us, like the forty-eight times it had before during my lifetime. Like the countless times it had during my father's and countless times during his father's. I knew it was meant for me.

"You have pushed me to my limits, dear one. I have passed on all I have. I love you so very, very much." My fathers eyes clouded over for the last time. "I hope I will see you again in the next life. My son." He breathed his last and his body sank to the gravel bed, striking me with its stillness.

"Father. Father, no. Please don't leave me here." I pleaded with his dead body, pushing him back upright, imploring him not to leave me to face the future alone. I shook him, nipped at him, to no avail. "I can't do this without you. Please."

But my words fell flat and he did not stir.

I felt despair and grief and the hand clasp around me and I was lifted up. Out of my world within four walls. Out of the only home I'd ever known. Away from the only family I'd ever had and loved.

For a brief moment, I couldn't breathe. I gasped for oxygen, but icy air overwhelmed my lungs and I felt I was going to die. But just as quickly I was dropped into a clear, empty prison. There were no castles or inedible plants or gravel. I was clearly and utterly alone. It was still colder than the sanctuary, but nowhere near as cold as before. I could breathe again. The door above me closed and I was sealed off in a matter of seconds from the rest of the world.

I watched as the giant went back and stooped for a moment to look at the bottom of the sanctuary, about where my father's body lay. I heard a rumbling of speech. The giant sounded...sad, if giants were capable of such a feeling. Although I was sure it was only my imagination.

The giant dipped the blue hand fate back into the water, easily catching my father's body. He was laid to rest in a prison much like the one I had been placed in and taken away, out of the lair that had housed my family and our sanctuary.

That was the last I ever saw of my father.

I curled myself into the tightest ball I could, pain wracking my spine and pushing my muscles burning to their limit. I cursed the giants and their cruel will. I lashed out at

I don't know how long my fit of rage lasted, only that the giant came and went twice in the time it took me to grieve anger at the loss of my father. I was left empty and sad and exhausted, still quite alone on the floor of my prison. My nose and head hurt where I'd pounded the clear walls. If death had offered to take me, I would have gone gladly with her to see my father.

My prison was much, much smaller than the sanctuary. Circular, with a radius and depth of about twice my length. It was barely enough room to breathe. It wasn't only a physical prison, it was a prison of the spirit. Here, I could do less than nothing. I know at some point, very soon after the death of my father, the giant moved me to a shelf.

There were so many prisons exactly like mine, both above and below me. I could feel their frustration, but none of them seemed to understand how hopeless the whole situation truly was. They would be sold off like so many pieces of decoration and confined to a large tank, doomed to procreate until they passed on to the next world. I was convinced this was what my fate would be, should I be taken from the shelf and outside into the great grey slate. That is what I saw from my shelf, a grey slate. Light came in, but dimmed every few hours. I learned to tell time. I know for certain I spent twenty-three days upon the shelf. No hiding places, no darkness, no warmth. I spent most of it on the floor of my enclosure, watching.

Until an unusually tall giant walked past, stopped, and looked at me. Fathers above, no. Please, no!

But my opinion did not matter. They did not hear me. The transaction was made. The giant of the pet store placed me inside a brown bag and I was taken away, just like so many before me.

コヒ

AN: this is 11.2% a fun little exploration of the disastrous life of saiki post series, 9.8% a PSA about bettas, and 99.3% dedicated to my oldest child, William Shookspeared, who died last month bc he had these weird goldish bumps on his sides, gills, and fins that none of my fedicine seemed to be effective against. he is survived by Jim, Nameless, Zelda, and Charles (all adopted siblings), but william was the oldest and my most precious. he was such a good boy. rest well, will

-tz