Best Fishes
I started vomiting fish again last night. Three in a row, each smaller than my palm. They looked like a miniature catfish, whiskers and all. I sat there while they swam circles around in my toilet bowl.
It had been over a decade since I felt the pressure in my chest that meant a fish was on its way. I’d been fifteen when it started. Every morning, like clockwork, just after I ate my breakfast, I would have to rush to the sink, clawing at my throat, and they would come bursting out of me. Little minnows, at first. Aquarium fish later, iridescent blue and striped gold.
My mother was furious with me. She thought I must be doing it on purpose, that I had some control over what lay dormant and swimming in my gut.
My father would look over my shoulder and say “Just be glad it’s not a walleye” and my mother would get mad at him, too, for encouraging my behavior.
When shouting at me every morning failed to garner the results she was looking for, and the fish became coin shaped and pearly white, she dragged me to every specialist in the hospital, but all of the doctors seemed to think it was someone else’s problem. The gastroenterologist sent me to the ENT who sent me back to the gastro who sent me to the neurologist who sent me to the psychiatrist, who told my mother that the fish were obviously a byproduct of my anxiety and probably her fault for putting so much pressure on me. My mother stopped taking me to doctors after that.
Eventually, the fish sort of just went away. It didn’t entirely coincide with my moving away from my parents’ house, but it certainly didn’t hurt. I would only throw up a fish every few months instead of every few days. I could hide it from my roommates without an issue; I bought a massive aquarium tank and let them think that I was a fish shopaholic who just couldn’t resist the suckers.
My mother would flush them every time, alive and whole, or wash them down the sink. It felt wrong; I would have dreams about the fishes haunting the sewers. My father, of course, said it was a shame that the fish were too small to eat, and couldn’t I try throwing up a bluegill once in a while?
Neither my mother or I found his commentary amusing, but he seemed to be trying to acknowledge me somehow, in his repressed, stilted fashion.
It had been long enough since I’d vomited a fish that my aquarium had been long stowed away on a dusty basement shelf, fish dead of natural causes rather than my mother’s fish-related sadism. I pulled it out last night; I’d nearly forgotten it was there.
My two year old daughter stopped coloring long enough to ask me what I was doing. I told her I was getting the tank ready for fish, that we would have three pet fish now, and maybe we could get more fish later, if we mutually decided that we liked to have fish in the house.
“Why?” She asked.
It had been over a decade since I felt the pressure in my chest that meant a fish was on its way. I’d been fifteen when it started. Every morning, like clockwork, just after I ate my breakfast, I would have to rush to the sink, clawing at my throat, and they would come bursting out of me. Little minnows, at first. Aquarium fish later, iridescent blue and striped gold.
My mother was furious with me. She thought I must be doing it on purpose, that I had some control over what lay dormant and swimming in my gut.
My father would look over my shoulder and say “Just be glad it’s not a walleye” and my mother would get mad at him, too, for encouraging my behavior.
When shouting at me every morning failed to garner the results she was looking for, and the fish became coin shaped and pearly white, she dragged me to every specialist in the hospital, but all of the doctors seemed to think it was someone else’s problem. The gastroenterologist sent me to the ENT who sent me back to the gastro who sent me to the neurologist who sent me to the psychiatrist, who told my mother that the fish were obviously a byproduct of my anxiety and probably her fault for putting so much pressure on me. My mother stopped taking me to doctors after that.
Eventually, the fish sort of just went away. It didn’t entirely coincide with my moving away from my parents’ house, but it certainly didn’t hurt. I would only throw up a fish every few months instead of every few days. I could hide it from my roommates without an issue; I bought a massive aquarium tank and let them think that I was a fish shopaholic who just couldn’t resist the suckers.
My mother would flush them every time, alive and whole, or wash them down the sink. It felt wrong; I would have dreams about the fishes haunting the sewers. My father, of course, said it was a shame that the fish were too small to eat, and couldn’t I try throwing up a bluegill once in a while?
Neither my mother or I found his commentary amusing, but he seemed to be trying to acknowledge me somehow, in his repressed, stilted fashion.
It had been long enough since I’d vomited a fish that my aquarium had been long stowed away on a dusty basement shelf, fish dead of natural causes rather than my mother’s fish-related sadism. I pulled it out last night; I’d nearly forgotten it was there.
My two year old daughter stopped coloring long enough to ask me what I was doing. I told her I was getting the tank ready for fish, that we would have three pet fish now, and maybe we could get more fish later, if we mutually decided that we liked to have fish in the house.
“Why?” She asked.
“Well,” I said, “sometimes fish just appear, and you have to do something with them. You can’t just stop paying attention and hope they’ll go away.”
She seemed skeptical, but I took her to the bathroom. She watched with guarded fascination as I scooped the three miniature catfish up with a water glass, followed me to the kitchen where the aquarium sat, full of distilled water and fake rocks and plants. I poured the fish inside; they seemed happier there than in the toilet bowl, with more room to breathe.
“I like the fish,” my daughter decided after five and a half minutes of watching them. I told her that I liked the fish, too.
She seemed skeptical, but I took her to the bathroom. She watched with guarded fascination as I scooped the three miniature catfish up with a water glass, followed me to the kitchen where the aquarium sat, full of distilled water and fake rocks and plants. I poured the fish inside; they seemed happier there than in the toilet bowl, with more room to breathe.
“I like the fish,” my daughter decided after five and a half minutes of watching them. I told her that I liked the fish, too.
Courtney Welu (she/her) is a writer from the Black Hills of South Dakota. She currently lives in Austin, Texas where she works at a community college. Her previous work can be seen in publications including Gone Lawn, Wensum, and Prosetrics.
Beaver Magazine 