Learning the Beauty by Jennifer E Reeve (snow like ashes series txt) 📖

Blup. Blup. Blup. Gurgle. Gurgle. Gloop. Gloop. Gloop.
That’s all there is for a fish to do, day in and day out, in the epitome of hell, a shallow, dark, desolate tank. Wandering from side corner to corner while being forced to wait eternities for someone to seep through the smudged doors and want them. Life is nothing more than a pointless voyage down a sinister, fine path that leaves you stationary if you are an ugly, horrendous, disgusting fish like myself. Friends come and go like memories to an Alzheimer’s patient; there one moment, then gone forever. There’s no hope for a family; only the knowledge that one will wait the rest of their life out in the pet shop as people come in and glare in hopeless disgust as if you were a demon sent from hell. It’s easy for one to see in their eyes the extreme gratefulness that this monster is but a minute imperfection in their idealistic world. Snickers would arise like stabbing daggers as teenagers walked in and would crowd smugly around my tank.
“Look at that nasty thing! What a poor excuse for a fish,” they would cry out in excitement. Then, low and behold, someone would tap on the glass walls of my dungeon, causing firecrackers to explode in my ears while they laughed at my fear. I had stopped giving them that satisfaction. Through my endless days stuck at Billy “Buster” Joe’s Wonderful World of Fantastic Pets, I’d taught myself to become the eye in their hurricane of torment. I was victorious in being the damper on their day. I may be ugly, but I am not weak. I am strong.
As I floated through the filtered waters, my organs wept from the knowledge that there was no hope left for a family. I would never have the pleasure of receiving any other name than the affectionate “Uggs” that Buster had bestowed upon me. He thanked the lord daily that I was the only fish of my kind in his tanks. I was the only worthless, hopeless fish that he felt compelled to waste food on. In his mind I knew he dreamt of the glorious day he could flush me down the drain to my burial. The only dream I had left in my mind was that of a Chinese restaurant. Their dark, musty atmosphere and dirty, filmy tanks containing the rejects of the world are all I had left to hope for. You know you’re ugly when even the Chinese restaurants don’t want you.
Then the fractured doors peeked open, and she walked in. She was the most horrific excuse for a human I had ever seen, and I instantly fell in love with her. She was ugly to her kind, but to me, she was nothing short of magnificent. My inner yearn for a family hit me like an express train to my chest. Her hair was mangled, her teeth too large for her face and crooked. Her lips were too large, her eyes too small, and her nose too long. She was a complete disaster to evolution, but I could imagine loving no other owner than her. From the moment I saw her, I instantly prayed that she would choose me over the newest shiny addition to the goldfish family tree. She had spunk and pizzazz in personality, though one would not easily be able to tell. What she lacked in looks was well made up for in her composure. To be brave enough to look like she and trudge in public was a testament to her strength. She was the owner I wanted.
I swam back and forth in my tank, trying to attract her attention toward me. She glanced beyond the tropical fish, past the gold fish, and strolled past the piranhas. My heart flew as I swam with might, throwing a one fish show for my new audience. Had I been a dolphin, I would have done nothing short of jumping out to the water to land her love. I had no voice, just my looks to attract her, and my fears were that my feeble body would not be enough.
“Oh, what an interesting fish,” she commented as she walked closer to me. She was my bait, and I was hooking her. “I want this one. He’s so interesting that I just have to take him home.”
“Honey, that fish is well; how would one put this? That fish is ugly. You don’t want an ugly fish like that,” her mother poked and prodded.
“Just because he’s not the most beautiful fish in this room means nothing to me. He seems like he will be the best fish I can find.”
“Just remember that sometimes your view of the world and others’ view of the world is not alike. You may think he’s interesting, but the rest of the world will think he’s trash.”
“Well that is a chance I am willing to take, Mama,” she bantered back as she handed cash over to an ecstatic Buster. He was finally getting rid of what he perceived to be the last piece of ugliness in his life and he could not wait to get it done and over with. Within seconds, I was out of the only home I had ever known and into a bag for transportation.
That bag was not meant to support life. The ride was not meant for me to live through. With each turn and twist, forces I did not know pulled me in directions my body was not thrilled about going. It was just my luck. I had finally found a family, someone who would love me, and I would be dead soon. I closed my eyes trying to imagine my meager tank at Buster’s. I tried to imagine that I was dying in those scum filled walls, about to be flushed down the drain as I swung from place to place. I didn’t know when or how this ride would end, but I knew that I no longer wished to be a participant. Sometimes we have to endure pain to find love, I tried to convince myself. This love that I would gain would become more than just a love of ridicule. I could already begin to feel Mimi’s love as she anxiously clutched the bag close to her chest, trying to minimize the forces pulling on me. All I had to do was make it through the ride and I would have a real family.
Mimi set up a tank in her room on a table that became devoted to me. She had decided on the name Feo for reasons that remain unknown to me. I could tell from the drab colors in her closet that she was afraid of drawing attention to herself. Her battered wardrobe was not that of one who loved them self, but rather someone who tried to cover themselves up. Her manner and attitude were an act to shade out the ugliness that consumed her body, yet I could see through it. She needed me more than I needed her.
One afternoon I awoke to the sound of laughter. Oh, how I loved the sweet melodious tones that she let loose in her laugh. It was unlike her cries, her fear or her pain. It was a sound effect that she only allowed in her moments of deep relaxation. Her laughter was a gift to the world and her smile was the light to my soul. Its light warmed me deeply and made me feel that the world was a better place. Had it been transferred into the notes of a song, the Hallelujah Chorus would be nothing to its glory. It was the voice of an angel given to one whom most wouldn’t allow it from.
She walked into the room accompanied by a group of her closest friends. I had never seen them in person, but I knew their faces from the massive amounts of photos collaged on Mimi’s wall. She spoke so often to her family of these friends that I felt as if I knew these girls. They were in a desperate search for cloth to make a cape out of. It’s impossible to be a female super hero without being fashionable and having a beautiful cape. It had become the most essential thing to find, a treasure that they would die without. As they were just short of dismembering the bed and stealing its sheets, her friend Addie’s attention suddenly became distracted from the search and settled upon my tank.
“Oh, Mimi, I forgot all about you’re fish!” she said in a sly tone. “Why don’t you show us this spectacular thing?”
“Oh yeah, I’m sorry. I was too much into the search to even think about it. Well, that’s Feo’s tank right there, and he’s got to be in there somewhere,” Mimi answered in a tone I knew all too well. It was fearful and self conscious. She had no idea how her friends would react to the sight of me, and the thought that her friends could possibly reject me had become unbearable. She had spent her entire life trying to make up for her short comings in vanity, and she was willing to do anything to make people like her. Her largest fear was that one day those who were willing to look past her appearance would forever be gone from her life. She feared any small change that could make this possibility a reality.
As Addie approached the tank, I instinctively hid under my rock. It was my shelter from the world and its judgments, and I knew that the judgment of these girls meant more than the world to Mimi. I would hold strong in my hole without letting anything scare me out.
“Mimi, I don’t see your fish. Did you not even get one?” Addie cackled. “I’ll bet it’s already died. She couldn’t keep anything alive if she tried.”
She slapped the sides of the walls trying to scare me into existence. I was a mysterious being that she would not miss seeing. The aftershocks were bombs exploding in my ears, though I vowed not to move. I had endured this pain before, and for the girl I so loved, I would be victorious once again. In desperation, she poured food into the tank. The light sizzle of the flakes falling onto the water called to my panging stomach; their taste slowly enveloping my mouth. My stomach urged me to go and claim the tasty morsels but I held strong from its pressure. The thoughts of the melting food were hard to ignore, though I had to.
“I’m sure he’s in there somewhere, Addie. He’s most likely under something,” Mimi answered as she tugged at her sheets. “Let’s just go outside. You can see him some other day.”
Just then my horrid fins floated from their shelter and swept out from under the rock. Addie caught sight of them like the experienced hunter notices small movement in the brush. Without much thought she reached in, grabbed a hold of my rock and stripped away the only protection I had from the world. She was the attacker, and I the victim. I was but a small drop in her storm of pain.
One look at me and they couldn’t control the laughter from escaping them. It came at me unlike the sweet laughter of Mimi, but rather stones being pelted toward me. “What a stupid looking fish! You would have something like that,” Addie screamed while the others snickered in the background. “It’s just as ugly as you!”
I could see the roses of embarrassment deeply root