Marta Owczarek - Goldfish

Am I not incredible? It takes a while to catch me, I am a goldfish that slides away from the fisherman’s hands, fights him with every muscle and all her strength, tries to jump back into the water, sink under the dark surface, and forget. Lay safely on the bottom of the sea, where the motions of the waves don’t reach. But if held firmly, wonders spill out of my mouth, I grant wishes off-hand; a light-speed train of thought brings about a flurry of ideas that swirl around in my head as soon as a spark ignites the customarily immobile coils of nerves and neural connectors. A flood kept in the riverbed spills over the quarters of the mind and realms of pages in a matter of hours, quantities that for other rivers take days and days to choke out. A hundred visions and revisions, and in parallel trails: as if when once forced with great effort to move, I begin to jolt in all directions, partly in a wish to get away from the focus at hand, like the fish, curl out of the grip of the three wishes of the fisherman, slide out of his projects, his instrumental idea of how to use me and my gift, jump out into pools of other endeavours that glimmer irresistibly on the horizon. It only takes a leap to cast off the perhaps interesting but all the same slave-like labour like a used skin and fly out above the dark seas, sprout wings and confront the sun. But all that befalls is sliding out for a moment, sucking on air in the anticipation of the flight, tasting salty air sprinkling below and the warm beams of sun casting new lights upon all the matters and all the paths to take, when the minute reverses and hiccoughs, and the rough, strong hands of the fisherman grab hold of my body mid-length, and strangle the words of the curse out of me, the promise to do what I am told. Then, I am held to produce wonders upon request. Strangled miraculousnesses, that for the mortal are dream-like and exquisite, but I know the seas stretch further, and if it wasn’t for the city’s barricades and walls, if the gates were forced open, the silvery water would spill further and further, into the infinite. With that perspective in the corner of the eye, how can a duty be performed without regret, without a scar of constraint, without an imperfection? To catch a fish is not easy, and instant gratification is expected when the toil is done, but if the fish was let to guide you, if you agreed to fall into the water and let her, not you, pull the string, you could swim away into the vast waters that nobody has seen before.