The golden carp

   Fishing had always been the way to live for Lin and his friends. Fro ma very young age, their parents had taught them the best parts on the river and the ocean where they could easily catch a vast array of fish and other living being from the ocean’s floor. They even had a friend named Chen, who lived his life by diving on the ocean and fishing things that many net couldn’t pull away from the sea. When he was lucky enough to find pearls, he would sell them and stop working for a month or so.

 However, the rest of them could never take a day off or anything like that. They had to work every single day for many hours, from dusk till dawn, no matter how tired and bored they sometimes got. The youngest one of them was Sun, who had only started the year before. He had being made to leave school but, after a very vivid argument, his mother had managed to convince the father to let him stay in school. So Sun had to wake up really early to fish for a while with his father and then he would go back at it in the afternoon.

 It was a hard life for such a young person but it wasn’t a unique thing for anyone on that region. They all had to do things that they didn’t really want for themselves. Most young people, for example, had the ambition to travel to big city, any of them, and being able to live the lives they sometimes saw on advertisements or on the television set, when people had one. It was a matter of doing what was needed to be able to reach that moment when they could choose their own path.

 When in his family’s boat, Sun would often try to do his homework but the fishing rods that he put on the edge would always move in the precise moment he was concentrating, on the verge of getting to a point where he would advance in his studies. He was doing poorly on some of his assignments and he really needed to get better soon if he wanted to get ahead in life. He knew the only way to get out of his town would be to learn more than others, to be smarter than any of the people he knew.

 Suddenly, one of the rods moved violently and then it was pulled into the water. It didn’t float for a moment or anything; it just disappeared in the blink of an eye. Sun leaned over the boat and tried to fish for the rod but the only thing he got out of it was a powerful bit from a huge carp that suddenly came out of the water. Normally, a fish bite wouldn’t really hurt but this one left a red mark on Sun’s hand. However, the weirdest thing was to see the carp looking back at him, almost as if it was staring. Then, out of nowhere, the carp spoke with a deep voice.

 He moved his mouth very differently than a human would but it was obvious that it was the one who was speaking. There were no other boats in the vicinity and Sun was too stunned to produce any words. The fish wanted to know where he was, as he had been following a current for some days and now it seemed he had found himself on the opposite side of the current. He apologized to Sun for biting him, but he explained he had been very scared when looking up and watching a hand reach for something.

 A little bit calmer, Sun rubbed his eyes and moved his hair around: he was obviously surprised but also very skeptical that it was actually happening. It seemed much more probable that he had fallen asleep in the boat and the sun on his head had created some kind of illusions or nightmares. It was very uncomfortable for that to happen, because of the response his parents would have if they looked at him sleeping on the boat. Yet again, he wasn’t very close to the beach.

 So Sun decided to play with the moment and just decided to ask the carp more questions, in order to really understand what was happening. Sun asked the fish where he wanted to go. The animal named a bay that he had never heard about. It had to be somewhere very far, so he just told the carp the name of the river that was nearby and the one of the bay they were talking on. The carp then did something even more unexpected than asking: it yelled, very loud, a very harsh curse word.

 The carp told Sun he really needed to go where he wanted because his whole family was reuniting for a very special event. He explained that he was part of a very special kind of carps that turned golden after a certain amount of time. When that happened, they were allowed to join a special school of fishes that could travel the ocean at fast speeds and could also grant wishes to anyone, human or animal, that came across them. It was a special thing that only they could do.

 Sun then interjected. He was very interested by that story because his mother had told him about how his maternal grandmother had come across a golden carp when she was young. Apparently, the fish had healed her from a very powerful disease that was creeping its way through her young body. The wish had made her well, and even better, it had made her a very vivacious woman until her last day. He remembered her from his toddler years and asked the carp if it was possible to know which carp had granted that wish, in order to give his thanks.

 The carp moved his head from side to side. He explained that golden carps never returned to the same place twice, so it was rather difficult to know which carp had granted which wish. Then, it started swimming back and forth. It was obvious he was really upset by the fact he was going to miss the best and most unique event in his life. Sun realized that, illusion or not, he should help the fish just because he had been the cause of him existing. No grandmother would have meant no Sun.

 He proposed the fish to jump on the boat in order to help him get somewhere, anywhere he wanted. Maybe there were other carps nearby that could help him get to the place he wanted to go. The carp was a bit skeptical of the plan but it really wanted to get to the event so he asked Sun to take him to a place where he could talk to many other fish. Maybe in such a hub he would be able to get some information on how to get where he needed to be. Time was of the essence.

 So Sun pulled the rods into the boat, a net filled with only water and then turned on the engine. The carp told him it would follow from underwater. Sun tried to remember the place where his father would fish every single day but then he realized the place would be crowded and all other fishermen would see the talking carp. Sun still believed he was asleep or maybe delusional, but it wasn’t enough to make him do such a stupid thing. They would capture the carp and kill it or maybe sell it because of its abilities.

 He stopped the boat at least three times; changing courses frequently because he remembered people would be there. Maybe even his friends who would taunt him. When the carp swam to the front and asked why he appeared to be so indecisive, Sun realized he wasn’t dreaming at all. He started taking it more seriously, less like a weird dream and more like something that was really important to do. He turned to the carp and was about to say he was sorry about not being able to help but then he remembered Chen.

 He was a good friend and had told him once where he fished for oysters and other animals. Sun turned on the engine again and in a matter of only minutes they were in the spot used by Chen to have his leisurely life. Then, Sun jumped out of the boat and indicated the carp to follow him.

 The carp followed and they found a colony of mollusks on the ocean floor. The carp started communicating with them and Sun went back to his boat. The carp surfaced later on, thanking him for his help. When the carp left, smaller fish appeared out of nowhere and jumped into the boat. Sun’s family was very surprised by his success.

Words from within

   I have found myself without words, without a real need to speak out, to talk to anyone. I find every person to be utterly dull, to be devoid of anything really interesting to say, of anything that means something to me. Granted, it is my fault and my perception. I cannot explain why it happens and exactly how, but I realize it is something that is part of me and I cannot shake it off and continue my path through this world. Is not as simple as many people things. Demons are stronger, always.

 That does not mean they win every single time. It means the battles are always hard, filled with blood and sweat. And you will lose some of them, hopefully the ones that don’t really matter. If you lose, you learn. And that’s always good but not really. Because when you learn you have to have a good brain inside your skull. If you don’t, well, learning all you want won’t change a thing. You will always have a narrow-minded view of the world and that may not be the best in your life.

 I have learned a lot of things, I believe, both useful and useless. I know the names of all countries in the world and their capital cities but I have no idea how to use numbers beyond the most essential calculations. I know some things, here and there, about some of the world’s personalities, about animals and things all over the cosmos. But I have no idea what love is or what responsibility means for most of the people. I don’t even know if I want to know, but it’s clearly frowned upon.

 Not talking in a world that yells at you every single second of the day could even be dangerous. How to counter all of that crap that enters your ears and body? By talking, by having opinions and thinking. I do all that except the talking because I have found myself noticing there’s no one there to actually listen. And talking is only worth something when someone is listening and maybe they change their views on a subject because of what you said. That’s not happening to me.

 Granted, I’m not saying every single thing I say is worth something, anything for that matter. But I have realized that, as humans, we do need to be listened and for people to care, in any way possible. We need to feel we matter, that the world would be different if we suddenly disappeared. Sadly enough, the world wouldn’t really change if I died now, only a small fraction of it and only for a small amount of time. That’s not drama but a reality and the truth is not always something we want to listen to. But truth does not care about us, only about what is.

 Yet, I may be too much of a drama queen. Maybe every single thing that I’m thinking and writing right now is just in my mind. Maybe I’m worth much more than I feel to, maybe the world would change if I died right this moment. But something in me does not think so. Something inside of me, in my heart or brain or lungs, is trying to tell me that I’m hollow and that I simply don’t matter. Because another truth is that we don’t all matter and we’re just too afraid to realize that.

 So many billions of humans have lived, many more are alive right now and others are being born right now and in the future. Of all that cluster of human souls, only some of them really matter in some way. Maybe they discovered something or they made feel people good. It is possible they fought wars or their love, branded by words, transcended the borders of speech and time and truth. But those people are such a small group in such a vast amount of people. Just people.

 Yes, we all matter to someone, in a way. We all have parents and sisters and brothers and more family. Many have daughters and sons, lovers and pets. There’s always someone that remembers you. However, that may not be enough to some of us, especially when life has decided to make your life different, to make you the one to go through a path that not many people travel. And you don’t feel honored at all because it pisses you off how you feel like a gamble.

 I don’t speak that much because I hate my life. I don’t hate the people in it, because they have done their best. That’s another truth. But I do fucking hate that I have learned so much and really know so little. I hate that this world doesn’t seem to have a place for me. Each second that passes the air around me seems to be getting thinner and thinner. In some ways, I feel like an astronaut that has started drifting away from the spaceship and only has a limit amount of time left.

 I hear the clock ticking and ticking, passing too fast. Because people think there’s torture when time goes slow but that’s not the real nightmare. It is much worse when hours and minutes and days and years pass in the blink of an eye and you feel you’re still in the exact same place, as everyone else moved around and achieved so much. And you, me in this case, are drifting away more and more. Alarms make sounds all around you but there’s nothing really you can do besides waiting. You try to reach, to live, but life doesn’t really want you anymore.

 That’s how it feels. It feels as if you’re drowning slowly and no one should live through that. Not physically or figuratively. We don’t deserve to be killed in the slowest of fashions, as the world looks at us and judges us for not being brave enough to do things that we have no idea how to do. This world is wild, is a rabid animal that has to be tamed. It’s just a savage beast that wants more and more and more and we cannot all comply with its wishes. Maybe we’re too weak.

 That’s a factor, I guess. We might be too weak for this life or, at least, for the way we handle ourselves and everything around us. I find myself to weak write anything more right now. Every single thing takes a toll on our heads and it’s just too difficult to try to handle everything at the same time. It’s too hard and we’re not the same people that before, year ago. Those rugged men and women are not here anymore, maybe in some places thought. Most of us surrendered to our feelings.

 I just wanted you to think a little bit about the state of your mind, about how you really feel and how you live. Reality is a bitch but it’s the one we have to live in for the time we remain on this planet.

 If you can, help someone else live through this. If you can, help me.

Singin' ain't so

   From her earliest youth, Jessica knew exactly who she wanted to be. She wanted to be a singer, to spend her days on top of a stage and just please millions of people with her voice and personality. She insisted so much to her parents that they finally accepted to pay for acting lessons and singing lessons. They didn’t really support her aside from the money aspect, so every single thing that happened afterwards was done only by that young idealist girl who wanted to eat the world.

 She spent every single weekend practicing in her singing school and at home. Her family didn’t really like it because her voice was not very good at the beginning. And even when she improved it, it was still very annoying for people that just wanted to relax at home after long days at school or at the office. Jessica sometimes left the house and sang outside, walking to the store or the park. In her mind, she had to keep using her voice until someone noticed her.

 In all the magazines, her favorite singers and stars told the stories of their discovery exactly in the same way: someone had seen them in a public space; sometimes it was the supermarket and others in an ice-cream parlor. The point was that they just saw them around and knew that they could be amazing artists. As she wanted to be a singer, she decided to sing in the park sometimes, hoping for people to stop by and just stay for a while, enchanted by her voice and talent.

 Jessica convinced her best friend Anna to play the guitar while she sang. Anna had been pressured by her parents from a young age, leading a very different life than the one her friend had. She had been told that by the age of ten she should know how to play at least three instruments, and one of those was the guitar. She accepted Jessica’s request after her friend said that it was the best way to be far from her mother, who was always telling her what to do, even in summer holidays.

 They started doing their small shows when they were around thirteen years old. They would sing five songs, chosen that same morning by the both of them. They had to do an act that would attract young people to the park but also adults that had connections to the artistic world in order for them to get noticed by a label. Anna was not as optimistic as Jessica, but she supported her nevertheless, mainly because it was such a fun time to have every so often. It didn’t happen every day, that would have been impossible, but they sat on the lawn of the park as often as they could.

Four years passed, very slowly for Jessica and very fast for Anna. They had only one more year of high school to go and then they would be sent to college. Their respective families had been saving for a long time and it would only be the right thing to do to keep studying and go on to live a life where they could be someone. But Jessica had already chosen who she wanted to be and nothing could ever change that. I her mind, she had a year to breakthrough and then, it would be undiscovered country.

 Anna was always checking universities on her laptop, even moments before their musical outgoings. She would tell all of the details to Jessica, who never really paid attention. She was too busy memorizing the lines of several songs or learning about her favorite artists. She had her room all decorated with several pictures of them as well as of other artists and bands that had come before. Her aim was to be in one of those posters in the future, inspiring other young girls to be the best they could be.

 However, life has a way of laughing at people’s dreams. One of those days, in which they sang on the park, Anna was late with her guitar, as her mother had decided to argue about the prospects of university. She wanted her daughter to study to be a chemist or a biologist. However, Anna wanted to learn something that required more creativity, more freedom. She had seen a lot of brochures about design schools, film schools and others like those. She wanted more than what she already had.

 As they fought with her mother, she forgot that time was passing and that Jessica was not the most patient human on Earth. Once before, Anna had been five minutes late and she had been received by a furious Jessica yelling at her a bunch of things about decency and manners that a person in the artistic world should have. She also said some hurtful things and it made Anna regret her decision to help her friend. Jessica apologized later but made her promised she was not going to be late ever again.

 But she was. Jessica had been waiting for a while. As winter was coming, the clouds and the sky turned darker sooner than before. It was the perfect moment for a criminal coming from outside of town to attack her right there, in the park. He covered her face and dragged her away from the lawn and into a wooded area, where he gagged her and raped her. A woman walking her dog found her the following day. Jessica had passed out the day prior and was still asleep when she was found. Not even the sound of more people around her and the paramedics woke her up.

  Jessica woke up in the hospital three days after having been found. Some of her bruises were already receding. Her mother was on the room when she woke up. It was obvious she had been crying for a long while. Her father came in later and he hugged her and cried, without saying a word. It was very strange but she didn’t even try to say anything. It wasn’t that she couldn’t talk; it just seemed wiser to just listen and wait for the right moment to say the right amount of words.

 That night, the doctor told her what had happened, her parents had left only minutes prior. She cried in silence as the man told her that the police had captured the man the day before on a road. He had been cornered by them, trying to take advantage of another girl. He was so surprised to see the police that apparently let the girl go and shot himself on the mouth. The police didn’t even have a moment to properly respond or to save his life in order to get the criminal to jail.

 Jessica nodded. She wasn’t really hearing the doctor. She was thinking about her career, about her possibilities now that she had been through something that horrible. She felt physically ill, disgusted and just tired. But something in her brain made her think that it wasn’t the end or something like that. She felt that there was more to her story than just that. She made sure the doctor knew she was going to get out of that hospital bed soon in order to achiever her goals, by any means necessary.

 Sure enough, she started writing songs the moment she was able to leave the hospital. Jessica closed her room door and did not come out of there for a whole week. Her mother would bring her food and she would often tear up but not say a word. Her father stood by the doorframe and watched her, absolutely stunned that she could be that active after what had happened. It didn’t seem right, but at the same time, Jessica seemed to be in her element writing in silence.

 Three songs came out of those writing sessions. She grabbed her video camera and recorded three different videos, which she uploaded to YouTube on the same day. She sang on them about what had happened, about how she felt and about what was going through her head.

 Her music was a success. Millions of viewers saw the videos and shared them in less than a week. Soon enough, a recording label contacted her and an album was planned to be released within the year. And Anna… She never saw her again. She couldn’t forgive her.

Mirrors

   He took off the condom carelessly, threw it on the bin and look at himself in the mirror. For years, he had known he was a very attractive man. Men and women always made comments about how good he looked and how educated and well dressed he always was in parties, even if they weren’t the kind of parties to dress up to. His hair had always been shiny, his teeth white and his muscles very well toned and defined. He didn’t really have much to complain on the front.

 However, as he saw closed the door to pee in privacy, he looked at himself again on the mirror but saw someone else. He was suddenly looking at a short kid, kind of chubby and with a serious acne problem, which was odd because he seemed too young to be having acne problems. That was him when he was about ten years old, maybe a little younger or a little older. Maybe it wasn’t really him but the image he had of himself after so many years of looking at himself in mirrors.

 The man looked on, even after being done in the toilet. He looked at himself naked and saw beyond what people saw every single day. They loved his ripped abdomen but then he recalled he had worked for that body, day and night, paying month after month of a gym membership his parents had bought him to help his poor self-esteem. They had taken the advice of a teacher and the boy just ran with it, going every single day for a couple of hours. He was thirteen back then.

 Outside the bathroom, shuffling could be heard. He was back in the real world, a place he hated to be in but had to love in, like everyone else. Looking at mirrors had always been a way for him to be at ease, because that way he could see beyond everything. His goals were always clearer when he looked at himself on a mirror. It didn’t matter if it was the elevator of an old building or the wet toilet of a very rundown cruising bar; he felt mirror gave him a door, a way to escape.

 Sadly, there was no one to talk about what he felt. People always seem to now what he wanted and how he was going to get it. It was because he was better looking and a success romantically. They only knew the cover story but they were fascinated by that man that paid a great apartment, a car and many other things, only by modeling in underwear for several companies. And to be fair, he was very successful that way. But not enough. There were always younger, hotter models to be in advertisements of any kind, and they didn’t mind doing whatever the job needed them to do.

 That was how he started performing sexual favors in order to get money. However, at first he only did it to gain the contracts he needed so badly to keep having a stable income. But then, as he gained popularity, he started to do to win more money, to keep his lifestyle alive. It was impossible to live properly by only putting on a speedo. He needed to do more than that and he did. He took off every single piece of clothing and became an escort for the rich and wealthy who visited the city.

 He let water flow on the sink and looked at the water for a while. He put his hands under it for a bit and then used the humidity to comb his hair. It was a calming motion, to pull his hair back and forth, to get it just right on his head. It made his head quieter, better for thinking about what he was doing to do next. But the conclusion he reached was always the same: he needed the money, so he would keep going out with those rich men until he had enough saved to stop having sex with them.

 However, saving was not something he did, not as often as he wanted at least. Most of the money came and went, spent mostly on clothing, skincare, his gym membership and the payment of his debts, of which he mad many. All of that wasn’t cheap at all and only a very small amount of money was spared every month. That tiny amount went to his savings account but it almost didn’t grow at all. The last time he checked, he wasn’t close to live a really freed life. Not by a long shot.

 There was a knock on the door and then a deep voice. The man outside told him that he needed to get going, so he wanted to know if the younger man needed a ride. He answered “No”, bluntly. The man answered back with: “I had a great time. You can stay the rest of the night of you want”. When he heard the door of the bedroom closing, the young man stepped outside and noticed his client had left everything in a very neat order, except the bed sheets, which were a mess.

 He let himself fall on the bed and lay there naked for five minutes or so. It almost never happened that his clients just left. They normally wanted to talk or play some creepy old fantasy that they had. Even after the sex was done, they still wanted the charade to go on for as long as they wanted. They thought that time is money and when paying a room in a luxury hotel for a whole night, they wanted to get their money’s worth. The same was applied to him. He was no better than something like a room, a thing. He was very well aware of that analogy.

 He was merchandise. After all, it had been him who had started everything, even asking clients to recommend his services to others and so on. He had a website with pictures and videos, not showing his face of course, and it was visited daily by hundreds of lonely men. Only a handful could actually pay the price to spend a night with him, as he had several rules and conditions to actually let them even look at him. He used his looks in his own advantage and he did very well.

 However, he had heard of competition and there were many young men in need of money who delivered the same services for cheaper. They were mostly college or high school students who needed money to pay for education. And they were younger and better looking than him, at least in the eyes of his clients. He had to take care for them in the world of modeling and also in the world of escorts. His life was tougher than many would have thought so, but he had chosen and he always reminded himself of that.

 He got on his feet and walked towards the window. He looked outside: the sun was rising and, in a few hours, the streets would be filled with people going from one place to the other. He grabbed his jacket, which he had put on a chair just by the window, and took a lighter and a cigarette from one of the pockets. It wasn’t allowed but he didn’t care at all. He opened the window and started smoking, feeling the cold wind of the morning on his thighs, penis, abdomen and chest.

 He looked down, towards the people, and he kept thinking of other ways to achieve his ultimate goal, which was to live like a superstar without having to do everything that he did to live like that. He could learn a proper skill, but that meant spending money on education. That way was a no go from the start. He could create some kind of enterprise but he had no ideas of what to do. His body was all he had and it was already difficult enough to be a model in such a crowded industry.

 The cigarette fell to the ground when he finished smoking, when he realized there was no way out and he had to keep doing what he did, until something else happened and changed his world. There was no other way about it, no matter what people thought about his so-called advantages.

 He put on his clothes, looked at himself on the mirror once again and then stepped outside the room. In the elevator, he saw that kid from his past again but he closed his eyes until the machine stopped and he walked fast towards the exit, into the cold streets of an uninviting city.