Ra Ra Fish-Boom-Bah

I recently had a friend go out of town for the week. Said friend had some weird fishes that she needed taken care of whilst away. Said said friend asked me to take care of said fishes whilst she was away. Why? Because. I’m obviously super nurturing and maybe the fish requested me personally. Maybe we have a lot in common besides coloring and short term memory loss and gaping, vacant expressions and scaly complexions and she figured we’d get along. Either way, they’re here and we’re getting along just swimmingly.

The other morning, I arose early as is required of me for work. Because of that blessed, blessed recent event of Daylight Saving, it is still dark when I arise. Generally, I like to go as long as possible without turning on the light because I like my eyes. As I stumbled around that morning, I noticed that the fish were already up as well, floating around casually inside their bowl. Early risers. Go figure, I chuckled to myself. After I did what I could in the dark, I finally reached over and flipped on the light. It burst forth into the room and I shielded my eyes. They slowly adjusted, and I groggily looked around the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a couple of small orange-ish shapes darting around in a frenzy. I glanced over, and, to my surprise, my fishy friends were thrashing about like madmen. Madmen.

What the? I took a moment to try and figure out what it was that had startled them so. I suppose it could have been that they were chilling hard in their fishy bowl in the cool of night and all of a sudden it was bright. Reasonable, I suppose. I'm not a big fan of that myself. But that's not a huge deal. Could something as whatevs as that have caused such utter madness? I say, nay. Something else must’ve been the culprit. Hmm. So you’re lying there in the dark of night, and then all of a sudden the blinding light of day appears and there’s a man standing there… Maybe it was me? A frazzled man appears. That presumably controlled the light… Or caused it to appear… ? A man that controls the cycles of the light...

No. Could it be? Do the fishes think I'm...

god of the sun?

It does make sense. There is no light, and then there is, and there's a man that controls it—a bearded man with the features of an Olympian. Also, when I had finished my morning necessities, I left the room and vanquished the light, thereby demonstrating my power once more. I made the light appear, and then made it go back to night with the literal flick of a finger. Furthermore, I recently bought a light bulb that is supposed to simulate sunlight, making the light that I brought forth indistinguishable from the light of the sun itself. Therefore, to fishies, I caused the sun to rise and set and rise and set again, all within the course of a few minutes. And! In the evening when it’s dark again, I flick on the light. Instant sun. Whenever it is dark, I come in and cause the light to shine at a moment’s notice, and then extinguish it just the same. The sun is at my beck and call.

This realization has been a bit jarring. Imagine… me... A god! At first it was invigorating. I tried to get the fish to bow once, but fish don’t really bend that way. More recently, however, I’ve started to look at it objectively. It has caused me to re-examine a few things: First, I’m trying to keep my room a bit tidier. Imagine: someone who can control the sun but can’t keep his clothes off the floor. Embarrassing, right? I’ve also been trying to drop a few pounds. If at any point the fish decide to erect a statue or likeness of me, I’d like for it to be all svelte and majestic, like all of those Greek statues. I’d rather not my eternal legacy include prolific (nor monolithic) love handles.

I don’t know. It's very flattering and all, but, when it comes down to it, being a god is kind of exhausting; there are lots of expectations. The other day I tried to come clean to the fishes, but they just sat there with their mouths agape in what I could only interpret as awe and disbelief. After fumbling with my words for a bit, I realized I didn’t have the heart to break theirs and went on providing them with life and support. Criticize me if you will, but it’s only for a few more days. Plus it’ll be something fun for them to look back on for the remainder of their lives: “Hey remember that time we were transported to the presence of the sun god?”   “Uuuuh what?”   “...wh… hmm. Is this water?”  Who am I to take that away from them?