The Aquarium Clock

Dreamlike nonsense story involving a psychologist, a, clock, and an aquarium

         There was an aquarium in his living room where his couch should’ve been, and the water was way too blue. It was such a deep blue he couldn’t even see the wall through the glass. It was one of those blues that don’t appear in nature. But the weird thing was that the whole tank was arranged with corals that blended in; they were the color that was supposed to not appear in nature. That made no sense, he thought, if the corals weren’t nature’s blue.
         Even though they blend into the water, he could see the corals in two ways. First, sitting on the small table his late mother left him, there was a smaller lamp he had never seen before, which lit one side of the corals. The other way he could tell there were corals was because there was a bright orange fish the size of a dime swimming around them. It came out from behind the corals, and the colors seemed to hate each other; where the orange of the fish met the blue, it was fuzzy, and it made his eyes water. Even so, he stared at it for a good 43 minutes. That’s what the clock nailed to the door had said. The clock also told him he was wasting his time, and it said that very pitifully. When the man ignored it, it repeated itself.
         “You’re wasting your time,” the clock said, now with an inflection in its voice. His realization the voice had a voice made the time wasting man turn to the clock. He thought he was hallucinating, given the new aquarium and the lamp he didn’t buy, and it seemed he was probably correct because the clock was not on the door where it should’ve been, like it grew legs to run away but got caught. In fact, it had grown legs—cat legs, very cute—but it was just standing there, not running. Not ticking either because there weren’t any clock hands. Instead of clock hands, it had two human hands sticking out of the edges. It was weird because they were on the outside, pointing away from the numbers. One of the hands, the short one, met the clock at the bottom of the thumb; the other one ended at the bottom of the wrist. The short hand, pointing left, jumped up like there was a jump rope, but it didn’t fall down to jump again, and there wasn’t a jump rope. And if there was one, it would be yellow.
         The yellow jump rope made the man hungry, and he didn’t know why.
         "You’re not going to catch the fish by staring at it. It hurts my eyes,” said the clock with no eyes, “so I really would prefer it if you hurry up now, sir.”
         Those hands were so weird. The short one was a woman’s hand with one bright red fingernail like she had just begun painting them, or more like she was finished painting them because its other fingers had no fingernails to paint. The other hand was boring.
         Then the clock asked the man if he was dead, but he didn’t hear it. He was thinking about hallucinations. The man knew he was hallucinating because he was a psychologist, though not a very good one, he admits. He was clearly in some sort of a daze because that is exactly what he said to the clock.
         “I’m not a very good psychologist.”
         “What? That fish doesn’t care about your patients’ problems. Just catch it.”
         The man thought this was odd because he didn’t remember there being any fish, and when he turned around there were two fish in the aquarium. He didn’t know why he turned around when the important thing going on right now was that there was a clock talking to him. He turned to the important issue at hand.
         “Why are you a clock?”
         “Why are you not a clock?”
         “I’m sorry, I said that wrong. I meant to ask what’s going on.”
         “That’s quite a large misspeaking. I see why you’re not a very good psychologist.”
         “Why is there an aquarium in my living room?”
         “Can’t you ask something different?”
         “Why?”
         “Good!”
         “Are you going to answer my questions?”
         The clock did not respond.
         “How are you talking?”
         “I didn’t talk.”
         Frustrated and tired, the man decided to nap on the couch, but when he turned he saw an aquarium had entered his living room, and there were three orange fish inside. There was also coral, but not much, so it didn’t matter about the coral because the aquarium was the bigger problem here.
         “How am I going to get this aquarium out of my living room?”
         “Only a psychologist such as yourself could ask such a question.”
         The psychologist such as himself turned to the clock. The cute cat legs were tapping on the carpet. Now they were kneading it. “Why is that? Also, could you answer my question this time?”
         “Okay. It’s because you’re the only person in the whole world with an aquarium in your living room.”
         “Oh, no. Really?”
         “Yes, yes. It’s true. I know because I made that aquarium,” the clock cat said, now ripping up the carpet with its claws.
         “Can you unmake it?”
         “Who would unmake something? That doesn’t even make sense.”
         “You’re right. I’ll ask something that makes sense now. Why do you have cat legs?”
         “I don’t have cat legs. I have hands.”
         This was getting weird for the nonsensical man, so he called his late mother.

         “Hi, Tony. What’s up?”
         “There’s an aquarium in my living room.”
         “Oh, you got an aquarium! Have you got any fish yet?”
         Tony turned around and saw there were four orange fish in the aquarium where his couch should be.
         “There’s four fish. I need your help. That’s too many fish.”
         “Oh, got a small one, did you? Well, you know your Uncle Benny has got a big one. Just call him and see if he can take your fish.”
         “Thanks Mom. Bye. Love you.”
         “Love you too.”

         Tony turned to the clock that was now sleeping on the floor.
         “You can sleep on the couch if you want.”
         “There’s no couch.”
         “Oh yeah. I’ll get you a couch.”
         Tony called Uncle Benny to ask for a couch, but he didn’t answer.
         “Sorry, I can’t get you a couch.”
         “Did you try catching the fish?”
         “That doesn’t make sense. I don’t have a fishing rod.”
         “That’s too bad,” the clock said, as the woman’s hand with one fingernail made a water drop noise and moved to point at Tony.
         “Oh no, I’ve been standing here for twelve hours. It’s pointing at me again.”
         “No, poor psychologist. I’m laying on my side.”
         “Oh,” said Tony, who had not noticed the clock was sideways. It didn’t look sideways because the cat legs hadn't moved, and the paws were flat on the carpet, still scratching it up. It looked like the clock was clawing out rug intestines. That disturbed him.
         “Can you stop that, clock?”
         “Don’t call me clock.”
         The Time with cat legs went from laying to vertical, and the woman’s hand was now pointing at the ceiling.
         “Wow. Time goes by fast.”
         “Sure does,” said the Time that was now tapping on the aquarium glass. Tony didn’t understand how the Time was doing this because clocks don’t have hands. But this didn’t matter because there was a big aquarium where his couch should’ve been, and it had five fish in it.
         “I will catch a fish,” Tony said.
         “Great!” said the Time.
         Tony walked towards the aquarium, but the fish made his eyes start watering even more and it made everything blurry. Even so, he saw the aquarium was ten feet high, at least, and he had no way of reaching the fish.
         “I can’t reach the fish.”
         “That’s too bad.”
         “Can you get it?”
         “No, my hands are not waterproof. You will have to use yours.”
         “That’s too bad.”
         Tony knew how to fix this. He would walk outside, go around the house, open the fence to the backyard, walk in, close the fence, walk to the shed, open it, walk in, grab a ladder, walk out, close the shed, walk through the back door into the house, and finally, walk back to the aquarium with the ladder.
         “That’s a good idea,” said the Time.
         “Thanks, Time.”
         “Don’t call me time, either.”
         Tony found this boring, so he got the ladder and came back to the aquarium that had six fish. The Time’s cat fur looked wet. It was probably because it was sitting inside the aquarium. Tony thought that that made sense.
         “How’d you get inside?”
         “Can you hurry up?”
         Tony hurried up. He set the ladder in front of the aquarium, but it was too tall and it touched the ceiling, so he put it at an angle against the aquarium, and it still touched the ceiling. But now it was at an angle. He climbed up the angle to help the Time escape.
         “No, not me. Catch the fish.”
         “Oh, sorry. I thought cats don’t like water.”
         “I’m not a cat.”
         “What are you?”
         “Right now I’m a fish.”
         There were six fish in the aquarium, but he thought there should be seven, so the Time was definitely a fish. Tony thought that made sense. “Okay. I will catch the fish now.”
         “The fish have all gone,” said Time-fish. He looked at the aquarium and saw six fish.
         “No. There’s six.”
         “Okay.”
         “That’s way too many fish. You only wanted five.”
         “Please get me out of here,” said the Time, inside the aquarium. Tony found this boring so he reached in for an orange fish, which was still hurting his eyes, but now it wasn’t blurry. He thought the fish might be too far, but he didn’t even get his entire hand in the aquarium before he touched the bottom. And then scratchy sand went under his fingernails. It moved out and didn’t come back. An orange fish swam into his hand, and he held it softly and took it out of the water, and six orange fish crowded around the spot where Tony’s hand was.
         “They like you,” said the Time, still in the aquarium.
         “I don’t feel the same way. They hurt my eyes.”
         “They do that.”
         Tony looked at the orange fish in his hand and it was no longer orange, but yellow, and it didn’t hurt his eyes. It looked at Tony like he was its wife. Tony found this odd because he was not a woman, nor did he want to marry a fish.
         “Obrigado, senhor,” said the fish in Portuguese.
         “Okay,” Tony said, not knowing what the fish said. He put the fish in his pocket for later. But he didn’t know what later was for.
         “Why am I putting fish in my pocket?”
         “For later.”
         “That’s what I said. Can you read my mind?”
         “No, you said it.”
         “Oh, I didn’t realize.”
         “Poor psychologist you are.”
         Tony put his hand in the aquarium, and he thought it would be shallow like before, and it was, and every one of the seven fish went from the water into his hand.
         “I can’t hold this many fish in my pocket.”
         “I only want five,” said the Time in the aquarium with no fish. Tony put back four fish.
         “That’s too many, you have four fish now.”
         “I have one in my pocket.”
         “Sorry, I’m not good with space. I’m more into time,” said the Time in the aquarium. Tony thought that made sense, so he put the four fish in his other pocket, but then he realized the other fish was lonely, so he moved the four fish to the pocket with the one fish.
         “Do you want out?”
         “I don’t know.”
         “I will pull you out.”
         He did, and it was easy, but he had to pull while holding onto the boring hand so it was boring.
         “Can I have my fish now?”
         “Your fish? But, they were in my living room. I live in this room.”
         “So do I.”
         “But you’re a clock.”
         “That makes me sad.”
         “I’m sorry, here’s your fish,” Tony said, handing the Time four orange fish and one yellow fish. “Why is that one yellow?”
         “It means you did a good job with that one.”
         “That makes me happy.”
         “Me too. I get a raise.”
         “I want a raise.”
         “Be a better psychologist.”
         “That’s a good idea,” Tony said, watching the time leave his door. Now he was in his living room. There was an empty aquarium and no fish. That made him sad, and he didn’t know why.
         “Poor psychologist you are,” Tony told the aquarium that made him feel like he had drunk way too much water. He thought the aquarium would respond like the Time did, and it said swish swish, which made no sense because there were no fish swishing the water. Then he wondered what the Time does when it goes away, so he looked out the window.
It didn’t make sense. Not to see the Time walking down the road, holding eight fish when he only gave five, and it made no sense when the Time walked into a house and threw the fish inside another aquarium. Then the fish got too bright, so he closed the curtains.
         “I don’t have a clock anymore,” Tony said to his door that had a hole where a nail was supposed to be. He looked at the floor, and there wasn’t a nail, which meant the Time must still have it stuck in its back. Then he wondered if the nail hurt, but he got tired. The clock that used to be on his door said it was late o’clock. He grabbed the ladder and walked outside to put it in the shed and came back. His couch was where his couch should’ve been, and it was dark now because that weird lamp was gone.
         Then he yawned. But it felt wrong, so he yawned again, and that fixed it. He laid down on the couch, which was soft like cat fur. Too much cat fur for today, he thought, closing his eyes. He was tired after all that fishing, so the nap was okay, even though it was boring, and at least the aquarium wasn’t in his couch’s spot, so the spot was dry, and there weren't any swish swish to keep him awake or yellow jump ropes to make him hungry. Then he got hungry and had a dream about the fish, but he couldn’t eat it because it was too bright, and then he stopped dreaming about eating fish.