I have a goldfish. I named him Fred. I think he hates me. How could a goldfish not hate me? I took him from his family and stuck him in a tiny glass bowl with nothing but some rocks in it. I feed him his boring fish food. He swims in circles all day long, looking out at my busy, childish room.
                    Maybe he doesn’t know he’s in the bowl. Being stuck is all he’s really ever known. Does he even care?
                   I’m just surprised he hasn’t died yet. Mom always told me that I could never keep something alive for more than a week. She’s the one who forgets to water her plants. Mom and I have never gotten along. I guess it’s because I knew what it was like to be outside of the bowl, to not feel stuck, before she started fostering me.
                   Unlike me, Fred has never seen anything more than my room. I’m sure he’s come to hate the pink walls the same way I did after a few years. I still have my little kid polka-dot sheets on my bed that I got for my tenth birthday, and I’ve sort of decided I don’t want new ones. Fred’s only a month old. I bought him a little castle to put in his bowl when he was born. Maybe I’ll buy him a new one for his birthday, if he makes it that long.
                   He probably thinks I’m selfish. Maybe he really despises me for the way I talk to my friends but never to him. I watch movies, do my homework, and work on my never-ending art projects, all without acknowledging his presence. I think Mom is thoughtless when she goes about her life like I’m not there. Fred definitely thinks I’m selfish.
                  Sometimes I see him stop swimming. He stares at my art-covered walls like he’s given up. I wish I could tell him there’s more to life than being in that bowl, but I know that that would be a lie. I wish someone would tell me there’s more to my life than my current existence. That might be a lie too.
                 Fred’s never been on a plane. Fred’s never seen the ocean. He was born in a bowl. And he will die in a bowl. Maybe he doesn’t care to know that. Or he already knows that. I’ve never been on a plane. I’ve never seen the ocean. I was born in a hospital. And I will probably die in a hospital. I don’t know how I know that.
                 Sure, I feel bad for Fred. But I was born into the world, and then taken from my family, just like Fred. I don’t leave my town. My life has always been in the same twenty miles. Fred swims in circles, I walk in circles. Fred feels stuck, I feel stuck. Fred hates me, I hate Mom. Maybe we’re all stuck in a fishbowl and we just don’t notice. Maybe we don’t care. Maybe we don’t know.
                But I do know that in order to let ourselves out of the fishbowl, we have to let our goldfish out first. But that would kill them. So maybe that’s why we stay in our fishbowls