The Gold Fish

By Benjamin Parsons

Hadlam only wants to be happy, but as soon as happiness seems to be slipping away from him, he panics. When he's saved from drowning by a miraculous golden fish, his happiness seems assured - but when he falls in love with two women at once, can another miracle save him from himself? Part of the collection The Sleight of Heart and Other Stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Benjamin Parsons
• Release date: Feb 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215251737

Benjamin Parsons

I am a writer and artist from the Westcountry of England now living in London. I write and illustrate stories about love, hate, ambition, revenge, beauty, and the supernatural.

Book preview

The Gold Fish

by Benjamin Parsons

Copyright 2023 Benjamin Parsons. First published in 2010.

Smashwords edition, license notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

* * *

There was a young man called Hadlam, whose only ambition was to be happy; and if he ever found that he was not happy from moment to moment, he would panic, and worry that he would never be happy again. So he dedicated himself to pleasure, pursuing every thrill, novelty and excitement that might distract him into happiness; but these entertainments were, by their very nature, fleeting, and could not continually sustain him in that state of euphoria he so desired. Besides which, such distractions as travel, extreme sports, drinking, drugs, clubbing and fast cars all cost a good deal of money, and while living beyond his means to an extraordinary degree was certainly edgy, it could hardly be construed as happiness— so he was soon brought to anxiety and despair.

In order to make ends meet, Hadlam got a temporary job one Easter, bailing bilge water in the bowels of a rusting ferry. This position, so far removed from the entertainments he was used to enjoying, drove him into a heavy melancholy: he felt trapped, depressed, ground up and pasted by his circumstances, until finally, while traversing the empty seas in the middle of the night, his misery suddenly seemed to be such an emergency that he threw down the handle of his pump and ran up on deck to take some air. The wilderness of pitch water and pitch sky utterly overwhelmed him, and on a sudden impulse he hurled himself overboard to drown.

Beneath the waves, in the cold and pressing water, he made an effort to dive as deeply as he could, in perverse resistance to his natural buoyancy. Desperate to die, he blew out all the air from his lungs until his head was dizzy, but still he could not bear to breathe water, so remained suspended in black pain. Then, all at once, he felt a lightness, as if he had taken a draught of sweet, clear air, and his frenzy left him. He saw a remarkable fish swimming into view, which flickered through the darkness and circled about him, dazzling with an astonishing golden light, as though every scale was made of fire. This enchanting fish seemed to dance in the water with a lovely play and flux of gold, which delighted and amazed him.

To add marvel