Aidan is a Fish
At the moment, Aidan is a fish.
She has fins.
She has gills.
Of course, what I see
is a small girl of four years
communing with one solitary fish that’s
been placed in a pitcher full of water,
but these are mere facts.
Nothing to be confused with reality.
No.
What’s real is that Aidan
is a fish.
So much so that it does not occur to her
that she cannot breathe underwater.
A ridiculous observation in her point of view.
Why would a fish dwell on such menial things?

At this moment I am a human being.
One of the adult sort, I sit with other adults
some twelve feet distant from Aidan.
We mature humans
relate just as mature humans
are supposed to relate.
We co-exist in the bodies we were given,
and yet…
As I glance over at Aidan,
a part of me wants to peel away
and join her .
Here at this table we discuss issues of
such heavy import
while there at Aidan’s table,
wondrous things are happening.
Aidan is a fish!
How can you not see the marvel in this?

Perhaps you envision Aidan
pretending to be a fish, but no.
That is an adult assumption.
Though we might see a small girl
there on her elbows,
mere inches away from a pitcher of water,
that… That is not Aidan.
No.
Aidan is in that pitcher.
Aidan is there in that water.
She is at one with all things aquatic.
All things piscine.
She is so much a fish
she doesn’t know that water exists.
There is no her inside water
for water simply is.
It eases through her mouth
with each subconscious gulp
to pass through her gills as mere…
…sigh.

Why waste her time pondering frivolities
when there are better fishbowl conundrums
to puzzle over.

Aidan moves to the inner edge
of the pitcher’s thick glass
and looking out sees a small girl
gazing in.
Far beyond that girl
a man sits at a crowded table.
Swishing her tail,
she nudges up against some hard invisible barrier.
And there in her piscine mind a question forms,
“What? What does that human desire?
He looks such an old man.
So old, yet surely he longs for… something.”

Isn’t the answer evident?
He?
He desires that return to innocence.
That forever sense of awe and wonder.
He?
He
wants to be Aidan.

©07 Jack Hubbell