"Goldfish Skin" by Meg Pokrass

Goldfish Skin

I won the goldfish in the hoop-toss booth. Mom brought me to the carnival, and first-off we bought some ice cream, but it melted all over my dress. I cried, and Mom shook her head and said there was nothing wrong with a little spillage. She said there was nothing wrong with a little spillage, but she didn’t think we should buy anymore treats. Try to win something instead, she said.
I had five dollars to spend on games, had saved it up with my allowance, for babysitting myself when Mom had to go to the store because sometimes she didn't come back until morning. After the car crash killed my father, she was not as interested in cooking and would often be hunting for takeout, sometimes be gone for hours. For babysitting myself, she gave me money and told me that for my birthday we’d go to the carnival.
At the Ring-the-Duck booth, there was a drum-roll soundtrack. Ready one two three, the man said. I tossed the hoop over a floating plastic duck’s head. Tada! A gong gonged. That’s hard to achieve, young lady, the man said, throwing a shark grin at Mom. Mom’s lips straightened, and her eyes watered with pride.
The man had a fatherly chin, block-shaped yellow teeth. I won, but I knew, the minute he handed me the goldfish in a baggie, that a silly little fish couldn’t survive like this. The timer was ticking. Since the accident, I wanted to know about the bad things that were going to happen before they actually happened. Part of us was missing and would never grow back, and it was going to be a hard game to win.
Mom put me in charge. Her manual dexterity had been changed by the accident, and she had a hard time knowing what time of day it was and which meal we were supposed to be eating. That year there was a drought, and we sat on the front porch together and talked about how beautiful the golden clouds were. That color, Mom said, reminds me of goldfish skin.

meg pokrass

Meg Pokrass is the author of six flash fiction collections, two novellas-in-flash, and is the recipient of 2 Blue Light Book Award. Her work has been internationally anthologized in two Norton Anthology Readers, Best Small Fictions 2018 and 2019, the Wigleaf Top 50 List, and has appeared in places like Electric Literature, Washington Square Review, Tin House, Passages North, Wigleaf and Smokelong Quarterly. She currently serves as Flash Challenge Editor at Mslexia Magazine, Festival Curator for Flash Fiction Festival, U.K. (Bristol), Co-Editor of Best Microfiction, 2020, and Founding/Managing Editor of New Flash Fiction Review.

Headshot: Meg Pokrass

Photo Credit: Staff