The Goldfish

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A modern fable in verse. Wise Monkey Wrought scroll N.009, "The Goldfish." The goldfish had a memory of three seconds. The bowl took eleven to go round. It had a castle, which it discovered fresh on every lap. A goldfish circled, calm and slow, around a bowl it knew by heart, or might have, had it time to know. Each lap was new. Each lap, a start. It met the castle, small and pink. It had not heard of it before. It toured it all and did not blink. It swam away, and found one more. The owner pitied its small fate, three seconds held, and then erased. The goldfish, blank and up to date, approved the castle. It had taste. It had no past to drag behind, no grudge, no debt, no week of dread. No castle stayed long in its mind. A fresh one waited, just ahead. The goldfish forgets everything, and regrets nothing. A short memory travels light.