strangetomato | Strangetown: Chapter 23.5 (The fish speak...)

Warnings: None, really. Very minor sexual references.

Chapter 23.5

The fish speak.

We are the fish. Nobody knows more about the Grunts than we do.

We've been here since the beginning. We've seen everything. We know everything.

Buck is our primary caretaker. Like everything else, if you want it done, it's best to ask Buck to do it.

Ripp pays the most attention to us, overall. He's been fascinated by us ever since he was a young boy.

Tank is more or less unconcerned about our existence. He'll feed us if he has to, and sometimes he looks in, but it's not really a priority of his. He has other, more important, things to do with his time.

We all have names. The boys know them, and remember them, but Buzz never did. That's why we ended up with such interesting names. When their father was around, we were just "the fish", but other times, we were called by our proper names.

My name is Periwinkle. It's one of Buck's favourite colours. I have a small section on one of my fins that is this colour, and it was enough to secure me the name. It has a nice ring to it, don't you think? It's a little fancy, so my friends usually call me Perry.

My name is Viridian. Like Perry, I have a colour name. A number of us do. That's children for you. Pets often end up as a Blacky or a Snowball, but little Buck had a much wider colour vocabulary, even at a young age, so we were lucky.

My name is Sixty-Nine. Ripp named me. That much should be obvious. He was about twelve years old at the time, and he still laughs at it every time he talks to me. I don't mind. It might be childish, but it makes me laugh.

Before he gave me this name, I was just "the grey one". I like the new name better.

My name is Marigold. Tank named me, if you can believe it. He named me after a flower. He says that it was Buck who thought of it, but Tank was the one who said it first. We heard him.

My name is Temptation. It's a very special name, and I'm honoured to have it. Temptation is the name of Lyla Grunt's favourite variety of red rose, which was her favourite flower. All of the boys know that she loved red roses, but only one of them knows the exact variety that was her favourite.

She revealed this fact during a misty-eyed monologue, where she mused on the siginificance of the name, and the role that it played in her life. He remembered every word. After she left, he replayed many of the things he remembered her saying, over and over in his mind, so he wouldn't forget them. He wouldn't realize what she was really talking about until he was older. Now he understands what she was talking about very well.

You might be asking yourself how old we are, and how fish could possibly live that long, and the answer is really quite simple.

We are immortal.

Simulated fish do not die. We only die if the sims stop feeding us, and we always, always get fed.

Nobody ever forgets to feed us. Not ever.

We'll let you in on a little secret. The truth is, we actually do like Mr. Shark.

Well, not really... but we do like to see Ripp happy, and it really does seem to amuse him.

We'll tolerate just about anything, as long as it lightens the mood around here.

Tank never plays around like that. He just stares in. He doesn't tap the glass. He just carefully places his hand against the side of the tank, and holds it steadily in place. His hands are so clean, he never even leaves a mark. He always grumbles as he wipes away any fingerprints that Ripp has left on the side. But mostly, he just stares silently.

We're pretty sure that he isn't really looking at us, as much as looking through us, and thinking about all of his responsibilities in life. It's what he usually thinks about, we're sure.

Tank has a lot to live up to.

Buck is the one that feeds us most often.

And he cleans the tank too. Like we said before, he's very conscientious.

Buck is a good kid.

He never taps the glass, because he knows that this sounds much louder inside the tank, and it frightens us. He doesn't play around, because he's shy, and afraid that he'll embarrass himself. He pays attention, because he likes to take care of things that he loves.

They're all pretty different, but we like them all. They each have their own strengths and their weaknesses, and they've always been there for us.

We've watched these boys grow up.

Over there is the chair that Ripp usually sits in to watch TV. You can see that it has molded itself to shape of his buttocks.

When Lyla left, Ripp asked if she was ever coming back, and the General told him to stop asking stupid questions. And Tank told him that she would, but he was wrong. Ripp clung to that hope that Tank gave him, and never stopped waiting for her to come through the door. Every time the door opened he looked up from what he was doing, expectantly. We saw him. He did it, he does it, every time. He probably doesn't even realize it anymore, but every time a door opens, Ripp hopes that the person entering the house will be his mother.

Tank believes this also. He believes that both of his parents are still alive, and he really might think that the aliens are to blame. We don't know for sure, since Tank never talks about it, but it's a very good possibility.

This is the end table where Tank lays the newspaper, neatly folded, after he is finished reading it. He reads it every day, just like the General did.

When the General disappeared, Buck sat here, alone, for a week. He spoke to us sometimes, and he cried sometimes, but mostly he slept.

It was also here, in this room, that Buck kissed Jill Smith for the first time.

We didn't mean to watch them, but it was hard not to.

Really, we're lucky that the General didn't allow for the usual cat or dog, since that left us with more attention than fish usually get. The General hated the idea of pet hair on the furniture.

Most of the attention came from Ripp, of course. The sad thing is, we probably gave him more attention in return than his father ever did. Aside from negative attention, he didn't get much. He suffered for it.

When someone thinks that you'll grow up badly, it can become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Sometimes we'd do tricks for him, as well as we're capable of. He seemed to get a kick out of it if we made it look like we were kissing.

Tank thinks that it's a waste of time, like most of the things that Ripp does. He doesn't have much patience for Ripp's foolish behaviour, but we appreciated it. Fish like to be social too. Ripp has always been a good friend to us.

He really is just trying to be happy. Tank should give him a break.

We can tell that you have a lot of questions for us, since we seem to know so much about the Grunt family. How much have we seen? Where will they go from here? Will they stick together as brothers, through all of the struggles that they will surely face? Will the Grunts be able to overcome their past and learn to really live life to the fullest?