Friend of a fish

"That looks better!"

"Since when can you speak?"

"I always could."

"Didn't seem like it when you were swimming around in my aquarium."

"Well, you wouldn't listen. I tried to tell you a lot of things. You were deaf."

"Is that right? What did you try to tell me?"

"One of the lamps in the room was terribly positioned. The way the light hit the water and was broken by it, my eyes were constantly hurting."

"I had no idea. I'm sorry."

"Also, I quite liked the plant but there could've been a lot more. The greenery made it seem less like a cage. Though a cage it was."

"It was a home! I tried to recreate a bit of the wild sea for you."

"Why not give me back to the sea?"

"That I am doing now."

"What changed?"

"I mean... I could frame it as the morally right thing to do but the truth is I got a bit tired of you. Not personal. And I was thinking of getting a cat and afraid its first idea would be to eat that yummy fish."

"No offense taken. I get it. To you, I was decoration. I adorned your place. A painting, pretty lighting, some plants to make the room more vivid and a fish. One more add-on."

"I won't try to argue against that."

"The point is: get a fake fish. Or one of those pink squabbly jellyfish that look so realistic. They move, they swim with the current. Still, there's nothing organic there. No heartbeat, no nervous system, no instincts. No thoughts. Some of us do actually, you know, have thoughts. Although they work a bit different to yours. Let's not go down that rabbit hole. In any case, we live and a life in prison is no life."

"But you seemed so content. Many days you would swim back and forth endlessly, exploring every corner of the aquarium."

"I wasn't exploring, I was going insane! I knew every corner of that damn place by heart. Against all hope I was trying to find something new. Anything. A stone turned the other way. Some leftover food. Rarely, someone would drop one of those sticky things you often chew on or those small objects people hang on their ears. These were my most exciting days.

I would study the treasures without a pause, until I'd inspected, observed and analyzed every minute detail. Whenever I saw something I hadn't seen or noticed before, I would get excited. But it wouldn' take long before I knew the objects by heart. I would see them in my dreams. Then I would fall ill. I got sick of it all. I'd never even seen the sea, but I knew there had to be more. I think some of you humans are like that too. I've seen it in your eyes. They don't know how far beyond their everyday existence a life's experience can extend. But they feel it. There is a strange, deep awareness. And a few answer to it. They understand there's more to life than surviving and running after pleasure. They feel the sea in themselves. And thus, they're the ones who seek it out."

"You're a damn fish philosopher. Good that you only started talking now, you would've given me an existential crisis after a day with that talk."

"I've always talked. You're just beginning to listen."

"Well, bad timing one might say. You're about to enter the sea. Back to the roots - or so."

"Yes, I know. That is exactly why you can listen now. I am a part of you. And you are setting me free. Finally no more cages. Goodbye."