Goodbye

Ok. So it finally happened. It was one of those negative things that you don't want to happen, but years of disappointment have conditioned you to become a hard-hearted cynic who expects such things to happen. You become one of those people who stop believing and consistently expect the worst.

My fish died.

Cleveland was an hour away from Brisbane by train, but I'd never been there before and I wanted to see as much as I could. The train ride was far from boring. When you come from a country as small as Singapore, the sudden vastness of space takes your breath away constantly. I spent the day at Cleveland, having lunch in the sun and cocktails of Midori by the harbour.

In Queensland at least, the suburbs = where everybody lives. As far as the eye can see, there are only houses. The nearest mall or supermarket is a train, bus or car ride away. Everything is spread out. In Singapore, everything is nearby. Clusters of self-sufficient neighbourhoods (not suburbs) make up the city that is also a country as well as a capital. It's like Brisbane or New York City only bigger and with slightly nicer people.

I got off at the Cleveland train station and the sight of the harbour made me stop breathing. It was beautiful. I was so excited that I sent a text to Liam, who laughs at me and tells me I sound like a tourist. My classmate Candice came to pick my up and brought me to the bay and showed me the lighthouse. Pretty pretty pretty... We had lunch in the main shopping area and walked around. There are a lot of old people in Cleveland. It's like a secret retirement community, but you're not supposed to say that out loud.

We ended up by the bay and I was drinking Midori cocktails. Yum... I got back on the train, back to Brisbane. I was home for at least an hour before I noticed Gilbert. I remember thinking, why is he on his side? So I walked towards his bowl and I saw the white of his underside and thought, how come I can see the white part of his body? It was a few seconds before I realised he was dead and then I freaked out.

My fish is dead! I screamed at Sam as soon as I dialled her number.

I'm coming down, was all she said.

Sam and Nat rocked up seconds later, armed with a net. Sam managed to fish Gilbert out of the bowl while Nat did the honours of flushing him down the toilet. All the while, I was hiding under the blanket, screaming. It's all fun and games until something DIES.

From the start, I knew he was going to die. And for a while, the theme floating around was Waiting For A Fish To Die. And then I got used to having Gilbert around. And then he finally died. I don't know if I killed him, because I don't know what the life expectancy of a goldfish is. But I swear he was alive that morning when I left the house.