A Tale of Fish
By Fabiana del Valle
HAVANA TIMES – The water in the fishbowl looked contaminated. When the “leader” came, they thought he could save them, so they risked their lives for a common cause that seemed just and necessary.
The day of victory finally came around, the leader paraded around the bowl with his companions in combat. Everyone celebrated him as he passed by. Later these companions realized what his real ambitions were, they decided to rebel and were wiped out one by one.
The leader became the “Supreme God” and put them in his glass case. He promised them rivers of milk, mountains of sugar, indoctrination from the crib. Blind and without news from any other fishbowl, the fish believed his every word. They praised his feats while their atheist brothers were rejected with hate rallies.
They formed a school every time they were called to drink up his speeches and the few crumbs that fell from the sky nourished their hopes. They spent years moving silently in the space they were allowed. Breaking the rules could be dangerous.
Tense moments came, blackouts, fish jumping out of the bowl, small uprisings. Standing on his podium, the “Supreme God” promised everything would get better, so the fish remained faithful and blind.
Some thought they would be free when he was no longer “God”. They didn’t understand. Gods don’t perish so easily, and he is one of the most powerful, the kind that loses his human body, but his dark spirit still controls the future of the fishbowl from his guarded rock.
Prisoners in his glass cases still, they often forget feeding times. They have heard that there are more promising places outside the fishbowl, with less putrid water. They decide to jump, but only the lucky manage to fall in the big fishbowl and give rays of light, while others fall into the abyss.
From above, the Gods promise salvation, vomit out slogans, blame other gods for their misfortunes, soothing the rebellious spirit of the young who no longer want to resist.
The fishbowl looks sadder every day. The elderly say goodbye to their children, while they hold onto a distant hope and still kneel down at the altar.
Oxygen ran out a long time ago. They swim to the surface but the water is fire that burns in their veins. Fed up of everything, they rebuke the Gods, who then take away the light.
They fight among themselves, it gets saltier with every goodbye. The corpses of their brothers and sisters float in the water that becomes denser by the day. Cries, that were once stifled in bubbles, bounce off the glass walls.
It’s now or never – they say, the surface stained by black tears
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