Plastic Fish

My son sees a bear mounted on the wall inside of the barber shop and asks if it's real.

I say yes.

He asks if he can pet it to verify the truth. He puts his hand on the bear’s fur and seems satisfied.

He asks if they took it to a taxidermist, and I tell him yes, though I think that taxidermist is a big word for a ten-year-old to know.

He asks if the fish mounted on the wall above the front door is real, and I say, "No, it's plastic."

We sit in hard chairs and wait for his turn. Then my son gets a trim.

When it’s done, he smiles at himself approvingly in the mirror. We pay the beautician $12 plus a five-dollar tip then leave.

As we are getting ready to go to the barber shop this morning, my son tells me that he sometimes suffers from short-term memory loss like Dory in Finding Nemo. I don't think this is true. But sometimes we don't remember what we don't think is important.

After my son's haircut, we stop at Walmart to pick up the essentials: ice cream, ham, and pumpkin pie. He talks me into adding Frosted Flakes and tries unsuccessfully to con me into buying him a Kit Kat at the self-checkout.

I'm supposed to stop at McDonald's to pick up a Coke for my husband, but I forget. When I get home, I apologetically inform him that I was distracted.

He tells me that it's fine and decides to drive to town to get the Coke himself. He says he'll be back in twenty minutes tops. An hour passes, but it doesn't seem like it’s that long. I have a lot of other things to do—put the clothes in the washer, empty and refill the cat litter, and scrub the sinks. I want to wipe the mold off the bathroom wall, but my husband has tried and says it's not coming clean unless we buy a special paint. 

My son is busy playing Fortnite with a friend from school in a backroom from which I can barely hear the video game noise.

The truth is I don't mind the quiet at first. It's nice to have a moment to relax. I decide to sit on the worn flower print sofa in the living room and turn on Netflix. I look for a Liam Neeson movie. But something is wrong. All the Liam Neeson movies are gone. The only thing I can watch is that Marie Kondo show about home organization.

I walk to the backroom to see how my son is doing. His PlayStation controller is sitting in front of the TV. The screen is on. But he is not there.

I have a strange feeling and decide I should go to my son’s room to check on the lone beta fish in the five-gallon tank on his dresser. As a prank, my son sometimes tells me that the fish is floating. Then, when I go to see for myself, he tells me that he is just joking. This time, when I look, the fish is not floating. But the truth is worse. The fish is plastic. Nothing is as it seems.