FORTUNE FISH
Relying on external factors to give me a concrete sense of identity was not a new phenomenon. When I was very young, my dad sometimes came home from work with little gifts for my sister and me. I was obsessed with the mood rings he’d bring us. I wore one with an oval stone until it left a light green ring around my middle finger. “I’m not mad,” I would tell my mom whenever I felt like the ring got me wrong. Later, this obsession turned toward fortune fish.
Fortune fish are decorative red fish made of cellophane inside thin white plastic wrappers. Open a fortune fish and hold it in your hand and its movement corresponds to one of six traits: jealous, in love, fickle, indifferent, false, or passionate. I loved fortune fish because they told me who I was. I was desperate to know. So desperate that I’d believe the movements of a red cellophane fish curling because it absorbed my palm sweat.
When my dad would give us each a fish, the packaging around mine would be gone in an instant. Sometimes in my haste to open it, I would accidentally tear the paper key explaining the fish’s movements and their corresponding fortunes. It didn’t matter. I’d had enough of them over the years that they came to mind easily.
After placing my fish in my hand, its head quickly curled. Jealousy. Unlike the mood ring, where I knew how I was feeling and could refute the results of its magic, I had no evidence that I wasn’t a jealous person. So jealousy became my personality for the day. I complained when my sister gingerly lifted the red cellophane fish from its wrapper, savoring the experience. She’d set the fish on our kitchen counter, then place the undamaged key beside it. I fixated on her pristine wrapper, its half-toned waves and smiling fish head bobbing just beneath the promise of miracles. Instead of curling its head, her fish lifted both its head and tail. She was in love.
I glared at her and threw my crumpled key and wrapper in the trash. Still, my disappointing fish remained on the counter, its head lifted, signaling jealousy. Maybe her treatment of the fish was responsible for her better fortune. Or maybe something was wrong with it. I grabbed her fish off the counter and set it in my palm. After a moment, her fish reared its head too. My fortune was confirmed. I was jealous. I would have to wait until the next time my dad came home with those white plastic pouches to become someone different.