Unorthodox Point of View Short Story

Your Interesting Goop

You had the dream again. You were in an ocean. You watched the scene unfold as if from the position of a god, from a fixed point above the turbulence. The glistening azure waves swept over you, but you managed to stay afloat, afloat above the far rooted trench. The salt stung your eyes. There were vultures circling you, yes vultures, not the common seagull. They were pecking at you. They were biting. They were clawing. They were squawking. Every new scratch was the gift of struggle and pain. The thought of sinking to the bottom of the cavernous trench was nothing you feared, and in fact you were tired of the noise. You wanted solitude. You sank. You fell...all the way to the bottom of the trench. You were in a pit of darkness with faint streams of yellow light coming in. The water dissolved into the air, disappearing without you noticing. You walked along the bottom and opened your bedroom curtains.

You glance at your calendar and recall your relaxed schedule. You’re actually happy that today has finally come, and to get it over with. You hear a muffled buzzing sound coming from your desk. It’s your dad.

“…he knows that it’s that time of the month again! Martha, he likes fishing, otherwise he wouldn’t do it, now would he?”

“Hey! Dad? Hi, I can hear you talking.”

“Oh, Jimmy boy, I’ll be there to pick you up in an hour!”

“Yep. I’ll be ready.”

“Okay, okay, good, yep, I’m packing lots of salad for lunch and vegetables, mmmm, gotta love those veggies Johnny boy.” You could tell that your father was just saying this to please your mother. Your mother chimes in, with her squeaky voice:

“Who the heck brings salad on a fishing trip? That’s ridiculous, if you’re gonna lie to your wife, at least do it with a little respect, thank you very much. I’m not some stupid broad!” Your parents fading thick city accents make you remember your childhood. “Hiya Johnny, sweetie, do you actually care about these fishing trips? Don’t make your father force you to go if you don’t want to.”

“No, ma.” You giggle to yourself. “No, mom, I like these trips. It’s nice to escape from life and have some peace and quiet! I’m tired of you guys yappin’ my ears off!”

“Yeah, well, love you too Johnny boy,” You notice the joking tone in your mothers voice. “See ya when I see ya.”

“See yous when I see yous.”

After sitting on your front steps for a while, you manage to squeeze all your gear into the back of your dad’s compact car. You almost forgot that it was small and made you claustrophobic.

You recall how the lake in which you fish at determines the mood of the trip. The more fish and more clean the lake is, the more truth there is behind the idea of fishing. Sometimes your dad just wants to talk and brings you to the “pond” in town, which in all actuality is a giant drainage ditch filled with nothing but gravel and children’s lost dreams. Both of you know what it is, but once you arrive there, it’s basically an implied contract to act like it’s teeming with life.

“You, uh, want to go to Bear’s Lake?” Your father asked like it was an actual question, focused on the long road ahead of you both.

“Yeah, I love that place, c’mon pop, let’s go there.”

“Me too, you know, before we moved out to the country, we came here once in the summertime. You remember that Johnny boy?” You wrack your brain.

“No, no I don’t.” You don’t remember a lot of things.

“So much for those childhood memories, huh? They’re like nothin’ now; they’ve dissolved into air. Hey look, they got their house repainted. Ugly color. Some people just don’t use they’re heads…”

“Pops, I know you’re gonna ask eventually, let’s just get it over with now.

“Shall I go down the list?”

“Well, if I say no you still will, so go ahead.”

“How’s work?”

“Fantastic! They hired two more people to help take the workload off of me, I am leaving four hours earlier, everyone is so nice and generous, and they installed a new snow-cone machine.”

                  “Really?!?!?!” Your dad leans his weight forward on his seat to get a good look at you. All the while your dad doesn’t notice he is putting his foot down harder on the gas pedal.

                  “No! Of course not! It’s the same crummy situation as it was last month, and the month before that.” You become heated.

                  “Okay, well, uh, do you need help paying your rent, I know the rates an hour south can be quite difficult for most people.” You shake your head. “How’s your whole ‘music on the side’ thing going?”

                  “Really bad pa, really bad. I am hitting a block, and my mind feels like goop. I don’t get any time anyways to work on it, real musicians gets hours and hours a day. Even then most of them fail. I get one, maybe two a day if I’m lucky.”

                  You both unload from the car and carry the small rowboat from the top of the car to the edge of the lake. There are kids playing in the sand, arguing over the type of castle to build.

                  “You’re not trying hard enough, that whole ‘goop’ thing, yeah I only said that when I was young to get out of stuff.” You see the frustration on your dad’s face.

                  “I’m not like you dad, I actually care about my music.” You become more heated and hostile. You two meander your way off the shore and into the middle of the lake.

                  “What do you mean you’re not like me? You gonna do that Johnny boy?  Why do you always say that, am I so bad to be similar to?”

                  Your phone stings your leg and you answer it.

                  “Boys, boys! Your father forgot his medication he is going to have to come back, or your going to have to pick it up! I can’t, I have an appointment!”  Your mother’s unnecessary haste and panic causes you much anxiety. You hear the children in the background screaming as they kick each other’s sandcastles. There are grandiose shouts followed by horrible sobs. You focus in on every little noise and detail in the entirety of Bear’s Lake. Your father continues going off on a tangent.  You turn to say a snarly comment to your father, yet your foot gets caught on one of the raft’s seats. You enter head first, and the water cools you off. You remember your dream, and you laugh.