By Robertha Green Gonzalez
The idiom goes: there are plenty of fish in the sea.
But things were never that simple, because Frank was a snail.
Not just any snail, either. Frank was a store-bought snail, living in a fish tank in Gary’s flat. Gary was a university dropout whose primary contributions to the world at that point were an overwatered spider plant and a lingering cloud of cheap marijuana smoke.
Frank believed in love. He tried for love. But love, as a snail, is a difficult thing, prospects being what they are: limited and slippery. Not that Frank had nothing to offer. He was a hard worker, possessed a respectable shell, and came from a fine background. By which I mean he’d been raised in a rather high-end pet shop, the sort with clean glass tanks, with no yellow mould creeping in at the corners. He wasn’t your bargain bin £3.25 snail, oh no. Frank had cost £4.75. As far as he was concerned, he was top dollar.
The trouble was, the tank was small. Too small. And the other inhabitants, those fish he admired from across the plastic castle, never seemed to stay long. He couldn’t understand it. Each time, he would notice one, admire them, imagine a future of quiet companionship at the bottom of the tank – and then gone. Off to somewhere else, somewhere bigger, somewhere freer.
Frank didn’t know why. He only knew that, time after time, the fish he loved refused to stick around. And so he stayed, watching the water ripple, telling himself there were plenty of fish in the sea, even as the truth pressed in on the glass walls around him:
There was no sea. Only Gary’s tank.
What Frank never understood, what no one ever told him, was that fish love fish. Always have, always will. And no matter how polished his shell, how steadfast his devotion, how utterly sincere his slow, circling affection… he would never be a fish. He would always, always be a £4.75 snail.
Featured Image: João Costa