FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #15-A spill occurs.

See Challenge Here

See if you can come in at more than a Word Count of 600. Control your word usage. (SUGGESTED)

Using the above scenario, create a scene about a spill of some kind and what you happens. Is it related to you, to someone around you, the world, love, death, sports. Get creative. (REQUIRED)

 

Glass splintered along the entire front of the aquarium. For a moment, I hoped, prayed, believed, begged, it would hold, but with a crack it broke, releasing a flash flood of water, glass, colored stones, slimy plants and fish all across the oriental carpet.

Johnny leapt into the room, grabbing for fish.

“Come on,” I growled, “we have things to do.”

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Johnny barely paused. He had fish cradled in his shirt and was scrambling for more.

“Come on!”

“We can’t!”

I counted to ten. “We have a job, Johnny, let’s go.” Johnny was simple, but he wasn’t dumb. He was a good partner simply because he so rarely questioned his job.

“They’ll die! We have to put them back.” True to his word, he hurried over to the broken aquarium and dumped fish back in, only to watch them seep back onto the floor with the final drips of water.

I thought he was going to cry.

“Hurry!” he cried, scrambling for fish.

“You can’t…” I started then stopped.  If I reminded him he couldn’t put the fish back the aquarium then god knows where they’d end up…. sink, tub, pool….. toilet.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

A million dollars in the safe upstairs and Johnny wanted to play Go Fish? The sooner I helped, however, the sooner we’d move on to the job.  How many fish could there be in one aquarium?

Dropping my tool bag, I squished onto wet carpet, heart sinking. Holy Mother, there were hundreds of them, all flopping and gasping.  I began scooping like a steam-shovel, dumping them into a nearby vase, kicking bigger one under the furniture. Out of sight out of…. you know.

Next thing I knew, we were both standing there, soaked, hands full of fish.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

He started to run up the stairs, yelling ‘Bathroom,” reversed, almost fell down the stairs and ran towards the kitchen.  Little ole me trotted on behind.

Keep your mouth shut. Keep your mouth shut.  A million dollars. A million. Beach house. Sun. Sand. Umbrella drinks. Swimming in the sea with dolphins or whales or mermaids or whatever the heck was there.

Johnny ran to the sink, started to dump the fish before he saw the pool!  Out the back door, he ran, me at his heels. I started to shout “No!” but too late. Into the chlorinated pool went the fish. After a moment, I dumped my vaseful in as well.  Why not?

I watched for a moment as many of them started to swim sideways, sinking towards the bottom.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

“We saved them.”

“Yeah, Johnny, we saved them.  Now can we get back to saving ourselves?”

A throat cleared behind us.

“Mr. Rizzio,” I manged to croak out, turning slowly.  Actually, Mr. Rizzio and five of his men.

Oh, shit. “I’m sure you are wondering why we are here, sir.  You see, we heard the crack of your aquarium breaking and thought somebody must be breaking in. So we…. scaled the fence and….and….found all the fish on the floor and…. brought them out here to save them…..”

He wasn’t buying a word.

“You came here for a million fish?” he asked, nodding to the bag of tools at his feet.

I turned back to the pool, staring down at the tiny floating bodies.  This really hadn’t been what I’d expected when dreaming about swimming with the fishes.