Quick, short, update, BLOG

Just a quick short to keep things moving. I'm working on a few uni assignments at the moment so it's hard to find time to write. Luckily most of my assignments this semester are creative writing based, so I'll be able to post first-drafts here. It's always good to get a bit of feedback too.

Hen
By Tim Harvey

Henry Buchanan ate a goldfish on his thirteenth birthday. That's just the kind of guy Henry was. We were best friends for a while, then we weren't, and then we were again. I didn't know him very well near the end of high school, but I knew he got the nickname Hennessey Hen. The Hennessey didn't stick though and we all just ended up calling him Hen. Even me, who always called him Henry, at his mum's insistence.

I can remember plenty of stories of Hen doing crazy stuff, but the one with the goldfish still stays with me. It wasn't anything special really. We were gathered in his living room and when his mum went to get the cake he dipped his hand into the tank, pulled out the fish, and slipped it into his mouth. Not many people were paying attention to him, except me. I remember just staring at him, wondering what had just gone through his mind.

I asked him about it years later, after high school, when we were much closer. He just shrugged and said he didn't remember doing it. I found myself wondering if it had really happened. Hen had a way of making me believe anything he said to the point that I found it hard to trust my own memory. I know it happened though, I can remember the tail sticking out of his fist.

We did some crazy thing together too, back when we were dating. Hen was my second boyfriend, but it didn't last too long between us. It was right after our first year of uni when we met up again. He bumped into me in the line at an ice-cream place down near the beach. We laughed and then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.

I shrugged and said why not. That's just the kind of girl I am.

We never did get married by the way. That's something I'm very thankful for. How do you tell your kids that one of your first memories of their father was him swallowing a goldfish? If we did have kids I doubt I would have told them that story anyway. They'd be likely to follow after their dad and end up eating their own fish.

But we did end up hanging out after that, and eventually got together. We went on a holiday to New Zealand only a month after we met again. It was pretty expensive because everything was organised on such short notice, but we didn't mind. Hen dragged me out to a heap of different extreme adventure type things. I went bungee jumping, white-water rafting, mountain climbing. I'd never done any of that before.

Neither had Hen. He just said he wanted to go do something different.

That's how we ended anyway. Hen wanted to do something different. I can't really blame him. Or maybe I should. We'd grown apart and that was the bottom line. We both should have been there more. He occasionally got upset and I didn't know what to do. I told him to sort himself out. I guess he did. It's not that bad, thinking about it now. If I couldn't help him, there's no reason why he didn't deserve to find someone else who could.

I'm always drawn back to that goldfish. I wonder what it felt like, to be eaten. I wonder what it felt like to eat it. I wish he'd told me about that. I wish I knew what he was thinking.

Hen sprained his ankle when we went rock climbing. I told him not to jump off. He pretended to shout down that it wasn't as far as it looked. About a metre off the ground and he still sprained his ankle. It was actually a pretty bad sprain. His skin went purple and I had to help him back to our car. He taught me to drive a manual that day. Every time I missed a gear and the car lurched forward or back, Hen let out an incredible hiss of pain. I couldn't help laughing. I don't know why.

We shared a lot back then. Little things, anyway. Why buy two bottles of water when you could both drink from one? We even bought one pint when we went to the pub and didn't want to get drunk. It still surprises me how we could take turns on one pint of beer without ever knocking hands, worrying about who will drink more, or even saying a word.

It just started one night. I wasn't drinking, and he bought a pint. I just took it and nothing was said. The next time we went to the pub I bought a pint and it happened again. I never asked him about it though. Not like the goldfish. But we only shared little things like that. The big important things we didn't talk about. I felt comfortable not talking and I guess I assumed he did too. He could have, we never really talked about it.

I've met a lot of different people so far in my life. But I can't say I've ever met anybody else who struck me quite like Henry Buchanan did. You'll meet a lot of people too. Most will come and go, most won't really know if they want to stick around. It's not your fault. It's nobody's fault. Hen drifted out of my life, it just wasn't going to happen. But those people who you never really knew are going through the same stuff. You're drifting out of their lives as well.

The thing is, everyone who comes into your life will leave one solid image. One solid thing about them that will be burnt into your mind forever. I don't remember much about Hen, and you probably don't remember much about those people you've lost contact with over the years. But I'll bet there is something that is floating around the back of your mind that reminds you of them. One word, one phrase, one image, one memory that unlocks the rest of their existence in your mind.

But I'll also bet that no matter what impossible, fantastic, or crazy image you have in your head, you never had a friend who ate a goldfish on his thirteenth birthday.