Caldo was at the party, alone again. He wanted to make himself known, more than anything. But he couldn’t. So he sat in the corner and watched the fish.
He was a misfit, Caldo was. No one bothered to talk to him. Sometimes he was content with this, but usually he was not. It was not their fault, of course. He wasn’t terribly interesting. He wasn’t exciting. His name was a random string of five letters made up only a few sentences ago, so even his identity was something created just so the author could write a story. After all, a story needs a character. But Caldo was hardly a character. He was boring, which was why he was alone, which was why he watched the fish.
They were very pretty. His favorite had orange stripes going all around its body, with a pointed nose. It swam through the rock tunnel and over the statue. It defecated. The other ones were interesting too. But they were just fish, so who really cares? Not Caldo. Caldo just watched them because he was alone.
Eventually, Caldo got up and walked to a different corner in a different room. There were no fish there, but there were no people either, so he belonged there.
Then Caldo got drunk.
He never intended for it to happen. He had never really been drunk before. Yet, it had been four drinks in that little corner, and he felt jiggly (or something--he didn’t know, really. He was drunk). So he started to laugh at his pants.
Caldo got another drink, and was starting to have trouble even walking. He had started crying at some point, but it didn’t bother him much. It happened often. He went back to his fish. They understood him. The pretty orange one said hello to him, and Caldo said hello back.
A young man walked past him. The orange fish told Caldo to say hello, so Caldo said hello. The man stopped and looked at him. He said hello back. Then he walked away and Caldo was happy.
He looked to the fish and it was smiling. The fish had realized what had happened and Caldo thought about it. For the first time in a long time, Caldo had talked to someone when it wasn’t required. He was very drunk of course. But now he was different.
Some sense of importance surged through Caldo’s veins. It felt like sunshine. He existed now. Someone knew him. This deserved cake.
Caldo stumbled to the center of the room. The cake was there. It was untouched with a knife right next to it. It said shappy blrthdry jhon but it didn’t really say that and Caldo was drunk. So he took the knife and felt eyes watching him. Even jhon was probably staring. The only question was how big of a piece to take and he knew that an important man like him would need a big one. Caldo put the knife into the cake and cut himself a piece. Silence cut through the room like a knife through cake and Caldo felt clever for such a timely simile.
Caldo walked back the way he came with his big slice of cake. He had really make it now. If his parents could only see him. But they lived a few miles away so they couldn’t see him right now and plus they were dead anyways. His piece was the biggest one. He didn’t have to look but he knew that everyone saw him walking back. They all knew that he was important because he had the biggest slice of cake. No one could take a bigger one not even if they tried because the plates were so small so he kept walking and stood a bit taller. This party wasn’t for jhon it was for him and he had the biggest slice of cake so he mattered.
Jacob sat back down and his name was Jacob now because Caldo was dead and he was a new person. He was still by himself but everyone wanted to sit next to him. The fish all watched him and his favorite was now a little pufferfish that smiled even bigger and said hello even louder.
Jacob was going to take a bite, the biggest bite of all and then it slipped and his cake the biggest piece in the room was now on the floor. And suddenly someone laughed and it must have been jhon, the b****** jhon, the jealous jhon because he meaning jhon wasn’t the most important at the party but now he meaning Jacob didn’t have the biggest piece it was on the floor and so he meaning jhon was laughing.
Jacob died later that night alone by the fish.