100 Unfortunate Days Read Online Free Page A
Author: Penelope Crowe
bigger bowl. Then he got much bigger. And the water got dirty almost every day. And Little got sick. We did not know that goldfish got sick.
We went on vacation and when we came home Little was sucking the water in through his mouth like he was taking his last breath. He had white spots on his scales. It was too late in the day to call the pet store for advice, but we tried to add new water. By the next morning he had long ghostly strings of something trailing from his fins—and his eyes were white. The pet store said he would probably die but gave us medicine and told us to buy a bigger tank. We did all of the things they said.
The medicine worked and Little lived. He also turned white. And he grew about twice as big. And then he got sick again. He was floating sideways in the tank and his gills were blood red. The pet store said he would probably die but gave us more medicine and told us to buy an even bigger tank. We did. A thirty-nine gallon tank. And we got Little a friend. A black puffy-eyed goldfish. We named him Blackfish and he lived about six months. Then Little got sick again because the water was poison because we did not know Blackfish died, and Little swam in the death water for a while. The tank was covered in algae and you could see in the front or sides.
When you open the top to feed Little, tiny flies swarm around, but the water is sparkling clear and Little is about five inches long. We were away once and forgot to tell the pet sitter about him. She would never know because the tank is downstairs. We were gone for weeks and weeks during the summer. We came back and Little was sick but we fed him and he was fine by the end of the night. We have to get a bigger tank soon.
Day 20
If I act sick and always have a disease I do not have to do anything. I can sit on the couch and eat candy and watch TV all day. I can be a lazy cunt. Then when they leave I can go in the kitchen and take out the recipe that I had been working on since last year. Nothing as obvious as arsenic or aconite—but things that have been left to change and blacken month after month.
The items I need for my recipe are kept in separate jars with stoppers on them and they have skull and crossbones labels on them. They think it’s funny and my way of amusing myself. Some of the ingredients are simply herbs and harmless on their own…parsley, basil, thyme, salt…and some of the ingredients are things you normally don’t keep in your kitchen…dirt from my best friend’s grave who died when we were sixteen, my blood during a full moon, hair, a rusty nail from an open field, water from a stagnant lake, taken at night. They are numbered one to forty-seven.
I am forty-seven years old. I will add another jar in July the day after my birthday. It will be a jar of water with a snail in it. I will cork the jar and the snail will live forty-eight days. On the forty-eighth day the snail will die and will disappear, except for the shell. The water will turn silver-pink and will glow until the next lightning storm. Then the jar will be left in the storm and it will collect some of the rain water which will douse the glow—but now the water will be different.
If the vapors from the water are inhaled, the person inhaling them will be clairvoyant for a month, but they will only be able to discern bad things. And every moment of insight will be accompanied by fever. Usually the psychic abilities are attributed to the high fever—but every one of the things comes true—or are already true. It is a horrible fate to be sick.
Day 21
The jar from last year contains my hair. Beautiful long pieces of my hair from when I was fifteen years old and the sun turned it golden, in a jar of water from a well with one drop of water from jar number one. Jar one was given to me by someone I no longer know. Last year’s jar is the only jar that has a screw-on top. This jar has to be put in a dark place, behind the stairs, adjacent to where many people walk
We went on vacation and when we came home Little was sucking the water in through his mouth like he was taking his last breath. He had white spots on his scales. It was too late in the day to call the pet store for advice, but we tried to add new water. By the next morning he had long ghostly strings of something trailing from his fins—and his eyes were white. The pet store said he would probably die but gave us medicine and told us to buy a bigger tank. We did all of the things they said.
The medicine worked and Little lived. He also turned white. And he grew about twice as big. And then he got sick again. He was floating sideways in the tank and his gills were blood red. The pet store said he would probably die but gave us more medicine and told us to buy an even bigger tank. We did. A thirty-nine gallon tank. And we got Little a friend. A black puffy-eyed goldfish. We named him Blackfish and he lived about six months. Then Little got sick again because the water was poison because we did not know Blackfish died, and Little swam in the death water for a while. The tank was covered in algae and you could see in the front or sides.
When you open the top to feed Little, tiny flies swarm around, but the water is sparkling clear and Little is about five inches long. We were away once and forgot to tell the pet sitter about him. She would never know because the tank is downstairs. We were gone for weeks and weeks during the summer. We came back and Little was sick but we fed him and he was fine by the end of the night. We have to get a bigger tank soon.
Day 20
If I act sick and always have a disease I do not have to do anything. I can sit on the couch and eat candy and watch TV all day. I can be a lazy cunt. Then when they leave I can go in the kitchen and take out the recipe that I had been working on since last year. Nothing as obvious as arsenic or aconite—but things that have been left to change and blacken month after month.
The items I need for my recipe are kept in separate jars with stoppers on them and they have skull and crossbones labels on them. They think it’s funny and my way of amusing myself. Some of the ingredients are simply herbs and harmless on their own…parsley, basil, thyme, salt…and some of the ingredients are things you normally don’t keep in your kitchen…dirt from my best friend’s grave who died when we were sixteen, my blood during a full moon, hair, a rusty nail from an open field, water from a stagnant lake, taken at night. They are numbered one to forty-seven.
I am forty-seven years old. I will add another jar in July the day after my birthday. It will be a jar of water with a snail in it. I will cork the jar and the snail will live forty-eight days. On the forty-eighth day the snail will die and will disappear, except for the shell. The water will turn silver-pink and will glow until the next lightning storm. Then the jar will be left in the storm and it will collect some of the rain water which will douse the glow—but now the water will be different.
If the vapors from the water are inhaled, the person inhaling them will be clairvoyant for a month, but they will only be able to discern bad things. And every moment of insight will be accompanied by fever. Usually the psychic abilities are attributed to the high fever—but every one of the things comes true—or are already true. It is a horrible fate to be sick.
Day 21
The jar from last year contains my hair. Beautiful long pieces of my hair from when I was fifteen years old and the sun turned it golden, in a jar of water from a well with one drop of water from jar number one. Jar one was given to me by someone I no longer know. Last year’s jar is the only jar that has a screw-on top. This jar has to be put in a dark place, behind the stairs, adjacent to where many people walk
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