The backyard surrounded by semidetached homes. The palisade and the
house as only source of shadow. The burning sun. The leather armchair
dragged outside after he came home from work. Him, sitting in the armchair.
Naked legs sticking to the scorning leather. His pilot sunglasses. His white
underpants. The ginger hairs on his legs, on his chest. His sockless feet with
yellow toenails in a kiddie pool. Pale, swollen feet against the bright pink
floor. Sand on the floor. Blades of grass floating on the surface. Closed eyes.
Wheezing breaths. His son who thought that he looked ill, sitting like this in
the summer heat. The wet, sweaty leather. A toothpick between his lips. His
son who thought he looked like a cowboy. The water which was now
lukewarm, not cold and directly from the garden hose anymore. The yellow
grass. The yellow beach ball that belonged to the neighbours, not yet picked
up. The smell of fried chicken from the kitchen window. De door-to-door
salesman. De finger with the golden ring pushing on the doorbell. The silent
house. The immovable man. The son in his room. The moonfish in the aquarium.
The fish who would've opened the door if they wouldn't have been a fish.
---
I wrote this short text for an assignment in 2018. It's inspired by the
novel 'How I Came to Know Fish' by Ota Pavel. I think I'd recommend that
book, but I don't remember much about it. Goodreads tells us:
"Unassuming and unforgettable, the stories of 'How I Came to Know Fish'
memorialize Ota Pavel's childhood in Czechoslovakia—his beloved family, t
flash of fish in clear streams, and the annihilation of this world by
the Nazis."
This text is just a short exercise, but it is the reason I read this
interesting novel and therefore I look back on it quite fondly.
