Big Fish by Alisa Taylor (book club recommendations txt) 📕

Look at them all. Pressing their ugly faces up against the glass. They disgust me. As if I was some kind of phenomenon. What am I, really? Just a fish. That is all I am and will ever be.
“Hey, you, kid! What do you want?” I yell. But of course he cannot here me. None of them can.





I watched as the little girls and boys marveled at the sight of the aquarium. Colorful fishes swam by as they were being followed by something even more magnificent, whether it is a shark or an octopus. I do not like to draw the bigger fishes. I like to draw the delicate looking ones. The ones that look like when they swim for their lives, they may be risking them. In fact there is one particular fish that is my favorite. He’s a purple guppy. He’s always either hiding under a rock, or right up front confronting everyone. I’ve drawn 23 pictures of him.
“Harold! Come on we’ve got to get going.” A man shouted for his son. Not one of the children moved. The man sighed and walked over to a boy with a red shirt. He quietly took the boy’s hand. The little boy knew he was obligated to follow, and that if he threw a fit, he would not win.
I went back to my drawing. I wasn’t drawing the purple guppy today. Instead, I was studying an eel. I watched as it slithered in and out of it’s hiding place. I was so involved that I hardly noticed when someone came and sat next to me. But then I started to become more and more aware of him. Why? I quick peeked over. Oh. He was staring at me. I blushed and hoped that he hadn’t noticed. I can always feel it when someone is looking at me. The problem is that I can never identify that feeling right away so I end up embarrassing myself.
I soon started to become uncomfortable. He was sitting two and a-half inches away from me, which was much too close, especially since I didn’t know him. I felt as someone had stretched a large rubber band around the both of us, and I was working hard to keep us from being pulled together. I shifted in my seat and tried to stretch the rubber band a little farther. He noticed. He shifted as well. Closer. I crossed my left leg over my right so that the majority of my body was facing away from him. He did the same. Crossed his left leg over his right so that he could face me a little better. I quick turned to face him. I was about to confront him, but then he quick turned the other way. I rolled my eyes and faced forward again.
“Rude...” I muttered under my breath. I didn’t noticed that he had also turned and faced forward until he said,
“Rude...” only he said it quite louder than I had. That’s when I realized that this man was parroting me. Teasing me. I hurriedly packed my pencils and sketchbook in my bag, stood up and left. “Oh no, wait. Come on!” He started to run after me. I started to run too. “I was trying to be funny!”
“Funny indeed. More like making fun.” By that time I had reached my car. I got in and tried to start the car. Unfortunately my window was open.
“My name is Henry...” He said breathlessly. “What’s yours?” Finally the engine turned over.
“Elsie,” I said quickly, and then drove away. I spent the entire car ride taking deep breaths. I had heard that square breathing can help people to be relaxed, but that it would only take four deep breaths to get there. But I had to breath so many times that I ended up with some kind of heptagram, or decagram, or some other kind of confusing polygon. Finally I had to pull over. I chose the nearest empty place where I wouldn’t get a ticket, did a poor parallel parking job, and let my head rest on the steering wheel.
Why couldn’t I get the sick turning feeling out of my stomach? Why did I feel like I wanted to bash my head against a wall? Why didn’t the redness fade out of my cheeks? There’s one answer to these and all the questions I’ve asked myself over the years, and it is that I’m painfully shy. I discovered this when I was twelve. I went into a store to go buy two sodas to share with a new friend I had just made. I walked in perfectly respectfully, minded my own business while I debated in my head whether Coke or Fanta would be the best choice. I picked Fanta.
Sodas in hand, I made my way toward the cash register, reading the nutrition facts like I had seen my mother do so many times, although hadn’t understood why.
Finally it was my turn in line. I set the bottles carefully on the counter and slowly looked up. A man stood there, looking down to me. He was chewing gum. His hair was balding in the center of his head and he looked over a pair of thick-rimmed glasses that he had scooted down to the edge of his nose. He was fat. Incredibly fat. And tall. His eyes scrutinized me with every blink. They pulled down on me with a force and said “I am looking at you, and I am laughing at you.”
I felt tears fall down my face.
“$7.95” he said, and held out his hand. I inched away from him, he watched curiously. Then I whipped around and ran out the door.
I pounded my head on the steering wheel, flinching away from the memory. Then I straightened myself up. I turned the keys and the engine roared with life. Oh, sure, NOW it works just fine. I rolled down all the windows and turned on the radio. I pulled out of the parking space and headed out back on the road. Then I tried to see how long I could go without breathing.
I gulped in one huge breath and held it until I got dizzy. Then I would let it out in a big huff, and I actually started to feel more relaxed. Or maybe that was just the tingling sensation in my fingers from lack of oxygen. The music helped distract me from the unutterable things I had experienced at late.
I had finally gotten my heart to start beating at a normal pace when my stomach growled. It often times happens to me that I get so involved with whatever I’m doing that I forget that I still have basic human needs like food and a bathroom.
Suddenly the thought of a bathroom made me realize how desperately I needed one. I had been putting it off at the zoo, trying to focus only the shape of the eels head.
I started to dance in my seat. I rocked back and forth while I drove, anything to keep me distracted. Think about the fish. The purple fish. Such a beautiful fish...
A diner passed through my peripheral vision. I quick did a U-turn into the parking lot. I grabbed my book bag and walked swiftly through the doors. I was overwhelmed by the smell of cinnamon, cheese, toast, and french-fries. I noticed that none of those smells usually went hand in hand, and I realized quietly to myself that they must serve breakfast all day here. I scanned the walls, looking over the heads of waiters and the delicious smelling food they were carrying. Finally, I spotted the door marked RESTROOMS. I walked swiftly through the crowd.
The restroom was clean and smelled faintly of bleach. An older woman stood in front of the mirror patting her face with makeup. I went into the bathroom stall and sat down with relief when I heard “Oh dear,” and slow rap on the bathroom door. “My dear, you wouldn’t happen to have any lipstick on you at the moment? I was in a horrible flurry earlier today and I left mine at home! Can you imagine? Anyways, I was wondering if I may borrow yours.” I small but wrinkled hand popped in from under the door. I quickly gathered myself, went into my book bag and threw the only lipstick I had into the waiting hand. The hand disappeared.
If there is anything I hate more than talking to people it is talking to people while I’m in the bathroom.
“Oh! Yes, my dear heart, this is perfect.” I opened the bathroom stall and stepped out. I walked over to the sink and turned the water on as hot as it would go. I grabbed some soap and started to scrub my hands down.
“Hear you go,” She said, placing the lipstick next to the sink. She put her hand on my shoulder. “You know, you have got such a lovely face. Nice broad shoulders. But too skinny. You should eat a little more.” I gave her the most honest smile I could while I quietly willed her to stop touching me. If there’s something that I hate more than people talking to me while I’m in the bathroom, it’s people touching me. “Honestly, you look too breakable. Like a goldfish or something.”
Stop touching me or I’ll break you. No. She doesn’t know. Wait, did she just compare me to a fish? I’ve never heard anyone make that comparison before. Stop touching me! It’s not her fault! She isn’t doing this to you on purpose. Ow. Burning, itching...where? Oh.
My hands were bright red while I took my aggravation out on them. Scratching soap into the almost healed scratches. Finally she lifted her hands off of me. I switched the faucet to freezing cold. I let the water run through the grooves on my hand, melting into them, healing them, numbing them.
“I’m Angela Crowne. What’s yours?” Ugh. Why does everyone want to know my name?
“Zoe...” I lied. She arched an eyebrow, as if she was trying to push my tongue into submitting my last name. “um, Zoe...” I looked down at her purse. A dog was printed on it. I think that’s a saint...“Bernard! Zoe Bernard.”
“Well, you look anorexic. You should eat.” Ms. Angela Crowne left me then. I sighed. I turned off the water and grimaced at the lipstick. I picked it up and threw it into the garbage.


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“Elsie. Hmm.” Henry smiled to himself all the way back to where he left Gabe and his daughter, Tasha.
“So, did you finally get her name?” asked Gabe.
“Nope.”
“Man, I told you you wouldn’t. You’re too forward.” Henry stayed quietly smiling to himself the rest of the trip. Henry didn’t know exactly why he had told Gabe a lie, but felt that it was important that Gabe did not know anything about Elsie. He wanted to protect everything he knew about her. Keep her a secret. Hide away with her.
But this was nonsense. He barely knew her name. And yet he knew everything of her beauty.





I wish I could fly. Then maybe I could get out of this hell. There must be a heaven for fish. I believe there is, there must be. Something better than living in this dreadful hole.
Oh, clear out. A shark is coming. Of course they are tame,