Indolence of the Koi
It breaks his thought loop about his brother, his over-analysis of where his family went wrong, and his criticisms about himself as an older brother.
It breaks all that trajectory for a view of calmness, watching the world and nature continue around him, whether it involves him or not.
The grandson has never gone this far out of town before, sent to search for someone who may never want to return home. A police report was filed, the police unimpressed with his mother, already suffering from enough grief, to be stared at like some lowly person even grated the grandson's awareness, breathing angrily yet quietly. He doesn't understand but he does understand why his younger brother ran away. He feels as if he should have a simple answer.
His mother promised to look after the koi fish while he tried his luck searching around town, but he did not have that much luck. His younger brother must have truly run away. The grandson only hears about such runaways through gossip and hearsay, not in stark reality, not in his reality. Unsettling does not do justice to how he feels about it, assuming the reasons in bits and pieces. It began with how they were raised, almost like frost and ice raising sunshine and sentimentality. It was done out of discipline, but the grandson feels not a fool about the consequences. Too many people repeat such a chilled rearing of their children that the cold lingers still in a child’s heart.
The grandson internalized as much as he could, using the koi fish as mediators to his repression, watching them for minutes, absorbed in life beyond his, how they live in a world shared with stress and grief. It feels like an honest, raw connection with nature, a place that the grandson worries his younger brother has fled into, a place that requires survival and grit. Darkness normally does not scare the grandson, used to the tranquility night brings, except with a darkened world, it becomes harder to find who he is looking for, and the hour has become dusk.
He needs to head back, but before he does, he catches sight of a stream with none other than koi fish, swimming with all the indolence in the world, meandering and drifting through the water. It breaks his thought loop about his brother, his over-analysis of where his family went wrong, and his criticisms about himself as an older brother. It breaks all that trajectory for a view of calmness, watching the world and nature continue around him, whether it involves him or not. He gets closer to the stream, attracted by the bright scales and lazy movements drawn to it.
These koi fish leave an impression on him that people don't. They don't expect anything of him, they don't demand anything from him, they don't patronize him, and they certainly don't hold grudges against him. Resentment burrowed so deeply into his younger brother that he could feel it by how they exchanged eye contact. He could live his whole life and never understand his family. He cannot remain for too much longer, needing to head towards another area outside of town, still hoping that chance will bring him closer to an emotionally wounded family member.
The grandson's luck may run out. Maybe the time for tears approaches again. The koi fish swim.
