VIEW FROM THE FISH TANK

ERIC HARRISON

THIS IS JUST A SHORT FROM 'BACK IN THE DAY'

 The silence of the night was broken, as the monster woke up again and threw its hand at the device, which was blinking 6:00 A.M. repeatedly, and playing rock music like it did almost every morning, seven days a week. The monster gave out a crackling yawn and then his first foot hit the floor. It generated an enormous tidal wave that rumbled the water within my home. The second foot came down with tremendous bang, which made my eye balls jiggle in my sockets. The first attempt to get off his king size contraption was unsuccessful, and of no use to him. The second attempt proved to be successful as the monster was slowly on his own legs, without the support of his king size contraption. He then hiked over the pile of pizza boxes, which he had happily emptied, and collected, every night for many days. They were scattered all over the floors of every room. The monster crunched over and around the empty chip bags and chocolate bar wrappers that lay on the ground in between the boxes.

 Success! He made it to the water works room where every morning he would step on to a machine that had numbers that rolled back and forth. He would announce the number out loud, and then write something on a piece of paper on the wall above the machine, and beside the shiny glass that he looked into every morning. He would see a monster just like him, but he didn’t like him. He always called him names. He would take out his little broom and brush the white things in his mouth. Sometimes the little broom would be the same color as the chocolate bars he ate after he woke up. He would put large pieces of cloth on his body and then give me some food as he headed out for the day. I could see through some glass that he would get into a large metal box, with four large wheels. It moved much faster than he did.

 A few days later I noticed that the monster was coming home later than usual every night, and he had very rosy cheeks and was almost as wet as me. He seemed very tired. Physically he didn’t look much different than he did a week ago. He was still a bulging monster like always, but I noticed that he was starting to move a bit faster, and he got up before the flashing 6:00 A.M. He was going to bed a bit earlier too.

 A week later, the monster came home a bit later than the usual time. He was watching the noisy box with lots of colors, when he picked up the black plastic thing that he talks into all the time when he wants pizza. He was reading numbers from a plastic card into the black plastic thing. The next day, shortly after he got home, I heard the same buzzing sound that always causes someone to come to the door. The monster got off his black shiny box with four wooden legs, and he opened the door. Sure enough there was a thinner monster there. It did not look like the same kind of monster who roamed around the place all the time emptying pizza boxes. He handed the big monster a box about the length of a pizza box and the width of a chocolate bar. He then left the room and the monster shut the door behind him. Thirty minutes passed and the monster took a belt out of the box. It was dark brown, and it had three shinny knobs on it. It was large enough to fit around him. He was reading a paper from the box and looking at the brown belt. After he was done reading the paper, that was probably telling him about the belt, he took the belt and strapped it onto himself with great enthusiasm. He then twisted one of the three shiny knobs and the belt started vibrating vigorously.  The monster went on about his business and eventually went to sleep on his king-size contraption. He was still wearing his brown belt.

 6:00 A.M. came again, and the monster rose. The monster glanced at his belt and discovered that it had stopped working. He raised both his hands and put them down on the belt and he started to jiggle it back and forth, and side-to-side. The belt started to spark, and a few seconds later it started on fire! The monster threw it to the ground and some of the pizza boxes then started on fire. The monster then ran into the slaughter room, where many animals and plants were chopped up and eaten, and he brought out a red cylinder with a handle on the top. He squeezed the handle and a foamy white substance came out and onto the flames, killing them on contact. It looked like the battle between the monster and the belt ended in victory for the monster; but he was not happy. The belt was now black, and in a small pile. The monster took the belt and put it into the pit that was emptied every few days.

 Several days passed and the buzzing sound made the monster get up.  The monster then headed towards the door where there was a different thin monster standing there, with a box almost the same size as the big monster. The lean monster rolled the box in and then left with his ‘L’ shaped machine with wheels on the bottom. The monster unpacked the box and took out a complicated machine. He read some paper again that came with the box.  In ten minutes the monster got to work and started to set up the shiny chrome machine with twelve long skinny heads, and a body that stretched the length of five pizza boxes, and had a long shiny area that was similar to the four legged box on which he used to spend so much time sitting and watching the noisy box.  He kept repeating the words “Bow-Flex, Bow-Flex” for some reason. Once the machine was completely finished, the monster lay on the shiny bench and grabbed two hands that were connected to two of the twelve heads. For almost the same time it usually took him to eat a large pizza, he kept trying to pull the hands off the machine; but they never came off.  It was getting late because he spent as much time building the machine as he did pulling the hands. He was tired, but he did not look unhappy.

 For the next two weeks he pulled the hands every day. He was also connecting the hands to more of the heads. There were also fewer pizza boxes in the room. In fact, there were none! One day the monster came home with something other than pizza, it was green with leaves, and he ate it out of a bowl. He ate lots of green things for a few weeks. There were no pizza boxes on the floor any more and the monster was getting faster on the big machine. This new type of food had replaced pizza, and as the weeks and months went by, it almost looked like the monster was being replaced too: by a thinner version of the monster.

 The monster moves faster and looks happier, but there is one thing that is starting to concern me. Even though he still gives me the same amount of food each day, he eats much less and lives in a much neater area. The slaughter room used to be full of red mushy food that he put into a very hot pan, and then in between two pieces of bread.  He still uses the hot pan, but the food looks an awful lot like some large relatives of mine. I’m worried that I might be a snack one day.