I stood there, hair dripping wet like I just showered, clothes soaked until they were see-through, staring at the dead fish that plastered itself onto my car wind shield. I climbed out my car through the passenger seat window since my car was squished like a bug under a fat man’s shoe against the divider. It seemed the more I cursed the day, the retched truck driver and God, the harder it rained.
I followed the trail of dead fish right up to the big truck also stuck against the divider.
“What the hell man?” I screamed, furious with this damn day, furious with the dip shit driver for cutting me off, and furious that it smelled like rotting, deceased fish.
“I’m sorry miss, I musta fall’in asleep there.” A bigger man hopped out the car, all cut up with blood dripping on his overalls. His beard stuck in different directions, white but stained red from the blood gushing in the place of where a tooth should be.
I wondered if I looked that bad. I scanned my arms and legs, wiggling my toes and seeing if everything was intact and working. I imagined all my toes pointing different directions or my elbow on backwards or my shoulder blade sticking up like a pair of wings.
“Uh, miss, I suppose you’ll want to call the cops huh?”
“Yeah I mean I would think so.”
“Okay,” the man started walking back to his truck, arms in the air like he just lost an argument.
I walked back to my car to grab my phone, muttering fucking ass under my breath.
911 was a drag to call. I always get nervous talking to them even when it’s an emergency. When I was younger, I did a prank call and had the cops show up to my house, which I got a nice beating for after from my mom.
The policeman arrived and I went up to him with all the essentials; ID, insurance, all that fun stuff. The old man came back out, papers in his hand and it looked like more blood somehow covered his beard.
“Hello officer, sir, this youn’ lady done cut me off and caused this accident. You see my product cluttering the high way, all my savings and worth,” the old man went on and on and all I felt was my eyes getting bigger and my face turning red hot.
“Are you kidding?” I scoffed, “you literally told me you fell asleep, hell it caused me to swerve and go into the damn divider because you couldn’t stay awake! Now I have fish guts all over my car like a new paint job.”
“Miss, now we both know that isn’t true. I understand you might be scared with what your folks will say but you have to take responsibility. This is my livelihood, all those fish covering your car was supposd’ to be dinner for the next 2 months for me,” the old man said.
“Listen, I don’t know who did what but I’m gonna make a report and ya’ll are gonna have to figure it out with insurance,” the officer said, clearly done with our argument.
The minute the officer turned his back, the old man stuck his tongue out at me.
“Oh that’s rich,” I snickered.
When the old man turned around I didn’t think, I just acted. I took the dead fish on my windshield and chucked it at him, guts and blood and everything. He turned around, eyes wide and surprised…and I just kept going, fish flying and dancing through the air like a damn crazy underwater circus. I threw the guts like it was red paint and I was decorating the next world renowned statue.
Next thing I remember I’m being handcuffed and dragged to the back of the cop car for “insubordination and assault.” Honestly, I’d do it again if it meant to see that stupid old bastard covered in his own fish shit.
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It's funny because I wrote this in 15 minutes and it's probably the stupidest thing I ever wrote, but I love it. It was an exercise we had to do in my creative writing class-- write a story about people arguing over a fish under 15 minutes. So this is the product and the only thing I really changed was some grammatical errors just so it's publishable. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. (Also not my picture, found it on pexels).
Love, AKO
Thanks for reading everyone! I appreciate each and everyone of you for taking the time out of your busy lives to read what I have to say. I pray my words can spark a thought, a lost hope, or a will to reach for the stars inside of you.
I'll link my book insta page which has short reviews, cute quotes, and giveaways.