Flash Fiction: Fish Keeper
Pulse thundering in her ears, Penny froze pulling open yet another door along the long, seemingly endless, hall. Unlike the past seven rooms she’d looked in, this room wasn’t empty. A dark-haired man stood staring at a huge, elaborate fish tank against the far wall. Trying to keep the panic out of her voice, she asked in a rush, “Who are you? Where are we? Am I dead? Is that why I’m young again?”
He didn’t turn when he answered in a calm, quiet voice that seemed to fill the empty room. “I am the fish keeper. What do you think of this aquarium?”
The only word that came to mind for the tank he was staring into was magnificent. It was over six feet, possibly seven feet high, and maybe even that deep front to back, and probably sixty feet long, with the back being a rock stacked wall full of caves. Plants grew everywhere, on the bottom and up in the stacked rock, waving in a slight current. It was beautiful, yet not quite right. Trying to keep her voice just as calm as his, she asked, “No fish?”
He pointed to a section of the tank a few feet away, and then quietly said, “There is one. Near the bottom, in one of the small caves. He’s about the size of your finger, so hides well when he wants.”
Surprised, she asked, “Just one?” her voice losing some of its calmness.
His own voice stayed even and calm. “He will fight or eat anything his size or smaller and hide in fear from the rest. I built this whole tank with everything he needs but someone to fight with. He spends all day living peacefully, poking into all the nooks and crannies I gave him, doing his fish stuff without fear. But if anyone is in this room, he hides.” He pointed to one of the half a dozen chairs spaced along the tank. “To see him, you would need to take a chair and not move until he forgets you are there. Only then will he act natural, and without fear. I do not come here often as I do not want to disturb him. All of the tank maintenance is automatic in such a way that he is unaware of it.”
Squatting down and looking in the area that he said, Penny asked, “All this for just one tiny fish?”
“The five thousand self-repairing rooms will keep you young, healthy and entertained indefinitely.”
Standing, Penny turned to him in alarm, but there was no longer anyone else in the room.