Swimming with Candles

My swimming class membership is ending. Should I extend it? I will repaint the house, if I do so.

From the day I took this house, it is draped inside its yellowish brown shade.
My friend and his wife were staying here before.

After taking the house, I did not move in for some time.
I received a voice message one evening and it said "Hello, we have a fish and if you can take care of it, I will leave it in the house, let me know".

It sounded weird to me. I do not enjoy having a fish at home and I did not even bother to answer his message.

After a month I decided to take a look at the house. It looked like a dried garlic trying to shrink in to itself but with a deep aroma.

They must have left the house in hurry. The calendar was hung on the wall and there was a flower vase, an apple, some green eggs and candles on the table. I felt the house was missing someone deeply and the stuffed air was sobbing softly.

It was then that I noticed the fish in the glass jar.
All alone in the house, swimming in never ending circles. Later I came to know that the neighbor used to feed the fish once in three days.
The food packet was there and it read 'feed three times a day'. I felt like standing on bananas and going deep down somewhere.

Pouring some food in to the jar I watched how the fish was gulping it down. All these days the single fish was swimming all alone, surrounded by many layers of loneliness, anger, expectation and imaginations.

I lighted the candles and slept in that house. In the night I felt the fish coming and tickling me near my neck. He was trying to escape from my locks.

I woke up and the candle was dying on its base. The fish tank was near me and I saw the fish still swimming. "Swimming and swimming and swimming" I just said, smiling.

It never bothered to look at me and always looked cheerful amidst the taunting loneliness. I saw the candle glow through the jar and the fish looked like swimming with the candle glowing on its head.

I wanted to know what gives him the courage to swim so charmingly, forgetting the world around.

I joined swimming classes the very next day. While swimming I kept my eyes closed and thought about the fish. The red fish's large face came very close by.

All these years I was swimming with my tan, expecting the candle to glow one day on my head, to understand the fish and someone else.