OK, I hate that name, but if everyone calls me that, what can I do? It’s easier to join the crowd than fight it when you’re young. I’ve tried sulking, and even not eating for a while, but neither did any good. Everyone just ignored me. So, it was going to be a choice: accept the stupid nickname and pretend it didn’t matter, or be sulky all the time. So I accepted it. But it’s still a stupid name, no matter whether I go along with it or not. And if I actually do have a slight bulge in my tummy, well, so what? Haven’t they ever heard of baby fat?
But I’ve stopped complaining about it. Let them call me what they want. Doesn’t matter to me any more. Try not to make waves, that’s my motto.
Maybe that’s me, the pacifist. I don’t feel like a pacifist, though. I’m as ready for a good fight as anyone. Even if I am only six. Just let someone try to take my dinner away! Then they’ll see!
I might be young, but I’m pretty aware of what’s going on. I’m in the swim, you might say, putting my nose into everything, keeping my eyes wide open, checking everything out.
I know, I know. You’re going to tell me I don’t sound like I’m six. Well, I am. Deal with it. Some of us are more in tune with our world than others, and catch on faster. I do spend time in school, you know. And, if you must know, though I do hate to admit it, I’m having a bit of help writing this.
Anyway, this isn’t about me. It’s about what I see going on, and just a little bit about what I feel about it. I’ve noticed that some people are doers, and some are watchers. I’m sort of the second kind, already at my age. Rather than taking part, I watch what people do, then try to figure it all out. I’d like to talk to them about what I see them doing, but that might get me in trouble, so don’t even try. Also, I get ignored a lot. Trying to talk about things probably wouldn’t make much difference. So, both of those are good reasons to put things in a diary. There’s also another reason I’ll tell you about later.
Maybe I like to only watch because I’m six, but I think it has more to do with the type of person I am. I have friends, and some of them are always doing everything everyone else is, just being one of the crowd, especially when in school. Some of us, though, are more loners. I guess I’m one of those.
The main reason I decided to start keeping a diary is because you see a lot when you’re six, and if you don’t write it down at all, you’ll never remember it when you’re old, like when you’re 14. Then, you might be able to figure it all out a little better. So having something to help you remember things for when you’re old enough to figure them out is probably a good idea.
I pretty much hang out in my big brother’s room all the time. I’m there, and I’m very quiet, so I’m sure there are many times he simply forgets I’m hanging there, watching. He’s one of those doers I talked about before. If this diary is going to be fun to read at all, it will probably have to be more about him and what he does than about me. For me, everything’s like same old, same old, all the time. Breakfast, school, play with friends, dinner. That’s about it, and not much to keep a diary about.
So I’ll write a lot about Jeremy. But that’s OK. Jeremy is a lot more interesting to write about than I am, though some of the stuff he does, I don’t understand at all. Probably it’s that being six thing again. Anyway, here we go.
Warm today, just like I like it. High humidity, but you get used to that. I hung around after breakfast, sort of waiting in the weeds as they say, for something exciting to happen. In the afternoon, Jeremy came in with his friend Scott. They both gave me a glance, and Jeremy even spoke to me, something he sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t, depending on his mood, I guess. After that moment of excitement, they promptly forgot about me. When I was younger, three or four I guess, it upset me that Jeremy didn’t spend more time with me, but I got used to it. It doesn’t bother me much now. At least he lets me hang out in his room. Not all brothers do that. Not that he’s really my brother, more like a step, or a step-step, but I think of him like a brother, and I think he thinks of me that way, too.
Jeremy started undressing, while Scott went over and turned on the computer. Jeremy changed into his after school clothes, a pair of old shorts, sneakers and a tee shirt, then sat down and started playing a game with Scott. That got pretty boring for me, but I didn’t have much else to do, so I watched them.
They were sitting together on the same chair, each about half on it, the rest of them pressed up against each other. They were wriggling around a lot, probably trying to shoot and blow up the giant spiders that were jumping at them. After a while, Scott seemed to be getting uncomfortable or hot or something. I decided he probably had a stomachache because he said something to Jeremy and got up sort of bent over just a little and made his way to the bed and lay down on his stomach.
He lay there for a while, then stood up and rejoined Jeremy. When he sat back down, he threw his arm over Jeremy’s shoulders, probably to give them both a little more room. It was still a tight fit and they looked uncomfortable on that chair.
They finished a few minutes later. Jeremy stood up and stretched. He stretched so hard, reaching his hands for the ceiling, his shirt pulled way up and I could see his belly button. He had an outie. Of course, he was real thin; maybe all thin kids have outies. I don’t know, only being six. Jeremy’s 12. He’d probably know.
Anyway, while Jeremy was stretching, I saw I wasn’t the only one staring at that skin he was showing. Scott was too, and then, before Jeremy could lower his arms, Scott attacked him! Reached out and tackled him. They both ended up on the floor, then, rolling around wrestling. I liked watching them wrestle. They did it a lot, so they must have liked doing it, too. They both giggled a lot, I know that.
They wrestled awhile, and then suddenly Jeremy said, “That’s enough,” and then he must have had a stomachache too, the way he moved to the bed. He lay down like Scott had, and Scott lay down next to him, also on his stomach, and started rubbing his back, asking if he was OK, and his voice sounded sort of funny.
They stayed like that for some time, talking, Scott patting or playing with Jeremy’s back. Finally, Scott said he had to go, it was getting close to dinnertime. That excited me. Dinnertime! I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
It’s been pretty slow the last couple of days, but it was a little better today with more going on. Scott came home from school with Jeremy again. Today, when Jeremy was changing, instead of turning on the computer right away, Scott just sat in the chair and watched Jeremy change. Jeremy got a little red in the face when he saw that. He asked Scott why he was watching him, and then Scott’s face got red, too. Jeremy laughed at Scott and told him he was blushing, and Scott said Jeremy was too. I guess blushing is what it is when they turn red. I thought seeing them both like that was funny!
When Jeremy had his pants off, Scott asked if he could borrow some of Jeremy’s clothes because he felt like getting out of his school stuff, too. He said it was too warm, even though it didn’t feel any warmer than any other day to me. But Jeremy said sure, and Scott started undressing. Jeremy sort of watched him and sort of didn’t. He’d glance, then turn away, then glance again.
When Scott was taking off his school pants, he must have been in a hurry, because when he pulled them down, he got hold of his underpants as well, and they all came down together. Then he sort of got them tangled around his ankles, probably because he was so embarrassed. He was trying to pull his underpants back up but they seemed to be caught in his other pants, and Jeremy wasn’t glancing now, he was looking. Scott was blushing, and then Jeremy was too.
Pretty soon, Scott sort of tripped and fell down onto the floor. He said a bad word, and started to laugh, and was lying there on his naked butt, both sets of pants still down at his ankles, and he asked Jeremy to help him get them untangled. I thought he’d use with his hands to cover up that part that seemed to embarrass him so much, but I guess it didn’t occur to him to do that. Anyway, Jeremy came over and got down on his hands and knees by Scott’s ankles and started working with his underpants, trying to get them loose. He must have been having a lot of trouble doing it because it was taking him a long time. Maybe if he’d kept his eyes on the underpants when he was trying to sort them out, it might have been easier.
Anyway, he finally got them loose. Scott asked him to pull them up so he could use his own hands to prop his butt off the floor. Jeremy did. Jeremy was tugging them up Scott’s legs, and Scott was bracing his hands on the floor and sort of thrusting his mid section upward, probably to clear the way for the underpants to fit underneath him I guessed, but it seemed to me that Scott didn’t need to thrust quite so hard to achieve that. But he did. It looked to me like the back of one of Jeremy’s hands sort of brushed that embarrassing part, but my view was blocked so I wasn’t sure.
Then I figured if he had brushed that part of Scott, maybe it was because it seemed a lot bigger than usual and so was harder to avoid, or maybe it was because Scott was pushing so hard upwards to make sure his underpants didn’t get hung up on the floor that he kind of pushed himself right against Jeremy’s hand. I’m sure he was pushing so hard because he wanted to get covered as quickly as he could.
When Scott was covered up again, Jeremy gave him a pair of shorts to wear. Scott said he didn’t need a shirt; he was hot so he’d go without one. There was nothing wrong with that at all, so I didn’t understand why Jeremy should blush when Scott said it.
They played computer games after that like they had before. They wrestled, too, and Scott had Jeremy take his shirt off. He said it was only fair, that he’d have an advantage if he had a shirt to grab onto and Jeremy didn’t. So Jeremy took off his shirt, and I’d swear he was blushing again. I don’t know why he was spending most of the afternoon blushing. It was warm in the room. Maybe that was the reason.
They wrestled, squirming all over each other, and this time it was Scott who wanted to quit early. They pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon on Jeremy’s bed, talking and stuff. The stuff was, they both seemed to like touching each other, so most of the time, at least one of their hands was on the other one somewhere, touching an arm or a leg or a shoulder. They made it look real casual or accidental. I didn’t know why they’d want to do that, but it looked to me like they couldn’t help themselves. Maybe they liked it.
Scott was over again after school. I guess he’d had soccer practice, because he looked all sweaty. He told Jeremy he hadn’t had time after the game to shower at school, and just got dressed over his uniform and came right over. He wondered if he could take a shower.
Jeremy told him sure, so Scott said thanks and started undressing. Right there, not even in the bathroom. It must have been that he just couldn’t stand being all sweaty in those clothes any longer. Jeremy was a little surprised, I could tell by the expression on his face, but maybe that was why he didn’t turn around or anything, just stood there watching.
Scott got undressed, then stood there, naked, and calmly asked Jeremy if he had a towel for him. Jeremy said he’d get one for him while he was in the shower. So Scott walked into the bathroom. I couldn’t watch him any longer. I was staying pretty still and silent in that bedroom. Walking into the bathroom just wasn’t something I was about to do! I could only guess what was going on in there.
My guess was that Jeremy was getting a towel out of the linen closet in the hall because Scott had to shout to be heard, and shouting like that, I could still hear him, even where I was. He asked Jeremy if maybe he wanted a shower, too. He said the water felt real good and maybe he’d like to share. Jeremy didn’t answer right away, and I don’t know why he hesitated. Maybe he didn’t hear Scott as well as I did, but then he did answer, and said no, he was OK. He sounded nervous for some reason, or maybe it was excited.
Jeremy came back shortly after that and fired up his computer. He put it on one of those sites that he quickly switches off whenever the old people come upstairs. He looked at that while Scott was showering. I don’t know why he goes to those sites. Whenever he does, I think he ends up hurting down below and spends a lot of time pressing his part real hard by the look on his face and rubbing it, trying to soothe it so it won’t be so painful, I guess. Sometimes, it gets so bad his part gets swollen up like Scott’s was when he couldn’t get his underpants untangled the other day, and he has to take it out and pet it and soothe it a little till it calms down. I know those times are bad because he groans a lot, and a couple of times very recently when he’s been trying to make it feel better his face has sort of scrunched up and then a little bit of pus has come out of it. It wasn’t hurting that bad today, it seemed. He didn’t even have to take it out of his pants.
Pretty soon, he must have heard the shower go off because he quickly turned off the computer and went to sit on the bed. Then Scott came in, holding a towel and dripping. He asked if that was the towel he was supposed to use, and Jeremy told him it was. So Scott went ahead and dried himself off, right there. He spent a lot of time drying his hair and face, more than he needed to I thought, and while he was doing that, Jeremy spent a lot of time studying Scott’s middle part. That part seemed swollen a little. Maybe Scott has trouble with his, too.
When he was dry, Scott told Jeremy he’d just wrap the towel around himself instead of dressing so his clothes could completely dry out from all the sweating he’d done. He did that, and they ended up playing a computer game, but I could tell neither one was really into it. Then Scott suggested they wrestle again, and I could tell by Jeremy’s eyes he liked that idea.
They had an argument about what Jeremy should wear. Scott said Jeremy should wear just a towel like he was for it to be fair, and Jeremy argued maybe he should just take off his shirt. They were sort of talking this out and having trouble deciding what would be fair, and I wanted so badly to tell them that the way to make it even was for Scott to put clothes on to match Jeremy’s, that there was no way to make it even if Scott had only a towel and Jeremy refused to do that, but I didn’t bother. I’d got used to nobody paying any attention to what I think. Maybe it’ll be different when I’m seven.
They finally decided. Jeremy wouldn’t give in about wearing just a towel, and Scott seemed determined he wasn’t going to wear anything else, so how they ended up doing it was, Jeremy stripped down to his underpants, and Scott stayed in the towel. It was pretty funny, because before they even started, you could tell they were enthusiastic to get going. They were both blushing a little, both had eager expressions on their faces, and their middle parts were poking out the cloth covering each of them.
They began wrestling, and Jeremy kept grabbing at the towel and pulling it off. Then they’d both giggle. They had to keep stopping so Scott could wrap it around himself again, and he had trouble doing that because his part was still sticking straight out in front of him. Finally, because they couldn’t get much wrestling done that way, when Jeremy pulled it off one last time, Scott said another of the bad words he sometimes used and said he’d just leave it off if Jeremy wasn’t going to fight fair.
Well, it got interesting then, because now Jeremy had a different target to aim for, and I’d swear, when he’d grab hold of it, Scott didn’t even seem to mind too much. Instead, he just grabbed at that part sticking out of Jeremy’s middle. Then, they’d hold on to those parts and sort of roll around on the floor together, and it looked like they were only pretending to be wrestling then. Really weird sort of thing, if you ask me. I don’t know how they knew who was winning, doing it like they were.
The old folks came home about then, because both of them suddenly looked up at the doorway, and I could see shock and even maybe some fear on their faces. I don’t know why they’d be afraid of the old people, but I didn’t know what else those looks could mean. They both got dressed about as fast as boys can, and then left the room together. Neither of them was sticking out at all anymore.
I had dinner later. That was about all the excitement that day.
It got cold during the night, even if it was April. Jeremy must have got cold too, maybe as much as I did, because after checking on me, he went and told the old folks that the heater wasn’t working again, as though they wouldn’t have already noticed! But they got it all fixed, and it was good being warm again. It showed me Jeremy really did care about me, even if he didn’t show it too often. He might ignore me some, but isn’t that what most big brothers do? It made me feel really good when he looked out for me this morning. He got me breakfast, too.
That afternoon, Scott was back. He brought some magazines with him, and Jeremy seemed excited about that. They sat on the bed and looked at them. I couldn’t see them very well, but the pictures on the cover of the one on top of the pile on the floor showed this older guy with only a swimming suit on and he was flexing his muscles, and they were big!
The boys looked through them, and were sort of pushing at each other and feeling their own muscles. Then Scott said he could do the poses they were seeing in the pictures and look just as good as the magazine guys, and Jeremy laughed at him. So Scott stood up and started flexing his muscles and trying to look strong, which made Jeremy laugh harder. That got Scott all riled up and he told Jeremy he couldn’t do any better, and Jeremy said he could.
So Jeremy started posing like Scott had been, and Scott looked him over like he was judging him, then said he wasn’t bad, but he couldn’t really see his muscles because he had his shirt on, and the guys in the magazine were all bare on top. He told Jeremy to take off his shirt and then pose.
Jeremy did, and stood in funny looking positions trying to make a muscle and glare like he was mad at someone. Jeremy didn’t really have any muscles, so it wasn’t working very well, but Scott didn’t seem to notice. I’m not sure he was spending all that much time looking at his biceps. Finally, he told Jeremy that the guys in the pictures were just wearing something that he called Speedos, and told Jeremy to pose in his underpants.
Well, Jeremy did, even though he was blushing. Then Scott did the same thing. Pretty soon, the fronts of their underpants were poked outward. They both laughed. Then Jeremy’s cell phone rang, and he said someone named Carl wanted them to come play soccer, so they both put on shorts and sneakers and left.
I played with some friends in the morning after school, hide and go seek and races mainly, and then was waiting when Jeremy came home. He had Scott with him.
When they came in, Jeremy started changing, with Scott watching, and when Jeremy was down to his underpants and looking for his shorts to put on, Scott stopped him. He asked him if he knew what beating off was, and Jeremy sort of blushed and stammered a bit, then said he’d heard some of the boys talking about it but didn’t know what it was. Scott said he’d just found out from his big brother, and it was about the best thing ever, and he’d show Jeremy if he wanted him to.
Jeremy looked excited and nervous at the same time, and started asking questions, but Scott calmed him down and told him to sit on the bed and he’d show him. Then Scott got undressed. All the way.
His part was real big and poking out, like I’d seen it before. Jeremy was staring at it, and his underpants started poking out too. Scott was talking to him as he grabbed his own part and began rubbing it, something like Jeremy did when his was hurting him. Jeremy and I watched, and I guess Scott had the same problem Jeremy did, because he started groaning and then got some pus from his, too.
Scott was a really good friend, I guess, because he could see from the way Jeremy’s underpants were sticking out his was hurting, too, and he reached over and started rubbing that part through his underwear, probably wanting to help make the pain go away. Pretty quickly, when Jeremy didn’t stop him, he told Jeremy to stand up and he shucked his underpants right off. Then he rubbed until he got the pus out of Jeremy. Getting rid of the pus must have really made a difference, because both boys seemed much more relaxed and happier afterwards.
OK, it’s been a few days, but that’s because there isn’t much new to report. I’ve been in school, playing with friends, and Jeremy and Scott have been together lots of days, but only doing the thing I talked about last time. They seem to like doing that because as soon as they come into the room, they get right to it. Nobody blushes any more, so I guess they’re used to it now. But I already talked about what they did, and saying the same thing over and over is boring. I didn’t want too many days to pass without an entry, however, so I thought I’d report today.
I guess there was one thing different today. Scott was telling Jeremy he wanted to do something else, and Jeremy told him he sort of wanted to but sort of didn’t, that he was maybe scared to do it. So they argued about that for a while. It didn’t stop them from helping take care of each other’s parts, however, or getting some of that pus out.
It was different today. I guess Jeremy and Scott had been talking some more, and I got the idea Scott had been still trying to talk Jeremy into that other thing he wanted to do, and maybe all that talk had been wearing down Jeremy’s defenses.
Because, as I said, it was different. They didn’t do the thing they’d been doing. They talked some more, and then they started in on the new thing. But since I didn’t understand everything they were saying or what they were doing, I’ll just tell what happened by reporting it in their own words. It went like this:
When they first walked into the room, Jeremy was saying, “But my parents will be home and I’m not sure when.” He was sounding nervous.
Then Scott. “Jeremy. Pleeease? I really want this. It won’t take long. If we hear them come, we’ll just stop. Come on. I know you want to as much as I do.” And he began taking his clothes off.
From the look I saw on Jeremy’s face, I’m not sure Scott was right, that Jeremy did want to do whatever it was. Scott was trying to persuade Jeremy, and Jeremy seemed reluctant. But then, Scott put his arms around Jeremy and kissed him, and the kiss lasted and lasted. I think the kiss changed Jeremy’s mind, or at least made him think about something other than his objections, because he began going along with Scott. It wasn’t long before both boys were hugging and kissing and didn’t seem to be thinking about anything else.
“Hey, I got something, some stuff for us to use,” Scott murmured, his lips still mostly attached to Jeremy’s. He began pulling Jeremy’s tee shirt up and off, and then started on his belt.
“What stuff?”
Scott paused long enough to answer. “I told you I’d read some stories on the net. Ones with boys like us in them. When they do it, they usually use something called lube. So, I got some!”
Jeremy looked a little embarrassed then, and Scott said, “I lifted it the last time I was in Safeway with my parents. I couldn’t buy it! I waited till the aisle where it was kept was clear, then grabbed a tube of what I read about, something called K-Y Jelly, and slipped it in the pocket of my hoodie. I brought it with me today.”
They kissed some more, then Scott stopped and took what he’d been talking about from his pants pocket. He stood back up and started pulling Jeremy towards the bed.
“OK, let’s lie down,” Scott said after pulling Jeremy’s pants off. He lay down first, then pulled Jeremy down on top of him. They started more kissing and rubbing their hands over each other’s body, and then Scott said, “Come on, I’m ready.”
Jeremy hesitated, though. “If my parents catch us, they’ll kill me. I mean it. They’ll kill me!”
“We’d hear them coming. Don’t worry. Come on, put some lube on me. I’ll put it on you.”
“But don’t we need a condom?”
“Neither one of us has had sex before. Besides which, we don’t have one.”
Scott squeezed the tube into his hand, then handed it to Jeremy. They both started applying the stuff to each other. Jeremy looked a little squeamish, rubbing it on Scott’s butt, but Scott seemed to like it. Jeremy really liked it when Scott spread it on his sticking-out thing.
Eventually, Scott said, “OK, I’m ready. Put it in, but go slowly.”
Scott pulled his knees up, and Jeremy, still looking uncertain, sort of got between them and put his hands on the bed by Scott’s shoulders and brought his lubed part down toward Scott’s.
That was when I saw a flash of bright light run across the ceiling of the room. I knew what that meant. That always happened when the old folks came home. Jeremy knew what it meant, too, because I’d heard him tell Scott once, when Scott asked how he knew his parents were home when the front door hadn’t even opened, that the sunlight reflected off their car windshield when they drove up the driveway, and it always flashed across his ceiling.
I waited for Jeremy to stop. I didn’t want his parents killing him. What would I do if I lost my big brother?
But Jeremy didn’t stop! I heard Scott urging him on, and Jeremy seemed to be concentrating hard and getting ready to try to push his part into Scott. It looked like that was what he was planning to do. He sure wasn’t thinking at all about that light that had flashed on the ceiling a moment ago.
I was terrified for Jeremy! I knew right away what I had to do. I also knew what could happen if I did it. I’d seen it done before. Every time I’d seen it, the friend who’d done it had died. I could die! But if I didn’t do it, Jeremy was going to die!
Without any more thinking or delay, I did it. I got down to the bottom, then shot to the top as fast as I could, kicking all the way up. When I reached the top, I shot out of the tank with a loud splash, shot through the air and landed, kerplunk, on the floor, where I started flopping around, not able to breathe, making as much commotion as I could.
‘Please see me, please see me,’ I kept saying to myself. I knew I wouldn’t last long if he didn’t.
I was starting to despair when I felt the floor vibrate, and then a naked Jeremy was kneeling next to me and scooping me up in his hands.
“Wow, Puffbelly, you jumped right out of the tank. Good thing I was here. I’d better put a cover over it if you’re going to do that. I wouldn’t want to lose you!” And he stood up, cradling me gently in both hands, then carefully slid me back into the water.
I stayed right by the glass, watching him, hoping he wouldn’t go back to Scott, hoping he’d realize they weren’t alone in the house any longer.
He started back for the bed, where Scott was waiting for him. He’d taken two steps when he suddenly stopped and raised his head. Then he grabbed his pants and said something to Scott, who jumped out of bed and started yanking on his clothes, too. They were both dressed and checking each other when the old lady walked into the room.
I was the only one who saw the lube still lying on the bed in plain sight. I wondered if it would give away what they’d been about to do, and maybe get Jeremy killed. Should I try to warn them? I couldn’t jump out of the tank again. It had been too scary the first time! But I didn’t need to. Scott saw it just then, and moved so he was standing between the woman and the bed, then backed up and sat down on the bed so it was hidden behind him.
Shortly after that, all three of them left the room. The excitement was over for the day.
This will be my last diary entry. Tragedy is upon us. Slimey, the snail I’ve been telling my diary entries to, is sick. Some of the other snails are, too. Slimey says he’s pretty sure all the snails will get sick and die. He says he knows he’s dying and only has a couple more days to live.
Snails are amazing. Slimey tells me they’re ‘prehistoric’. That means they’ve been around a really, really long time. Over time other creatures changed. They left the ocean and grew arms and legs and lungs and other stuff like that and the word he used to mean this is ‘evolved.’ He likes to use big words like that. He uses words like ‘prehistoric’ and ‘evolved’ and then explains what they mean and acts all superior!
Anyway, he explained to me that snails changed too but in other ways. They learned to talk to each other using their minds. He calls this ‘telepathy,’ or ‘communicating telepathically.’ That’s how he communicates with me.
He says all snails can do this with each other, but only a few can do it with other kinds of creatures. Like he can with me.
He’s taught me a lot about snails, as he’s proud of being one and likes to talk about himself. He says there are a few types of snails, basically salt water, freshwater and terrestrial ones, a word he says means they breathe air. He’s a freshwater snail, which he claims is the best kind, but he may be prejudiced about that; he’s kind of boastful. You know how that goes!
He says freshwater snails are the most telepathic of all of them, but he’s the only one in the tank I can communicate with. Maybe that part about only a few of them being able to do it with other species is right. But when he dies, even if some of the other ones in the tank live, I won’t be able to continue my diary.
I guess I can tell you all this, even though he was uneasy about giving away the secret. The snails being telepathic part I mean. But he’s letting me give it away. I think it’s because of him being conceited and boastful. He wants everyone to know how ‘evolved’ he is!
But that’s a good thing because it allows me to tell how, by trading thoughts with him, I’ve been able to make my diary. I can’t write, of course, but I can think what I want to say, and he can ‘hear’ my thoughts. He then can pass those thoughts on to air breathing snails that are close by, outside the tank we’re in, the ones who can communicate with fresh water snails. There are a few of those with special abilities, he’s told me, just like the few that have the ability to communicate with other species. When he passes my thoughts to them, a few of them can mark down what he passes to them in a code they use, making marks on flat rocks with their ooze. A few humans, ‘scientists’ he calls them, have studied snails and have learned to read these coded marks, and Slimey tells me my diary has been translated by them and they’ve written it down, and even put it on something called the Internet. He said many people have been following the doings of Jeremy and Scott. They’re famous! And he says I am too!
But sadly, this is the end. Slimey says there was something in the new box of fish food Jeremy’s been feeding us, and while it isn’t hurting my brothers and sisters and friends, it is slowly killing the snails. I won’t really miss them—and I’m sorry if that sounds a little cold blooded—but I sure will miss Slimey.
So this is my last entry, and I’ll sort of wrap things up. Jeremy and Scott seem to be spending many afternoons together now. They never have done the thing that’ll get Jeremy killed. I guess Jeremy decided not to, and Scott accepted it. They still do the thing to get the pus out, though, and they do that almost every time Scott comes over. I’m glad they don’t do the other thing, as I don’t want Jeremy to end up dead like Slimey will. I’m hoping we can both grow old together.
I’m sure Jeremy will introduce more snails to the tank when Slimey and all the other ones die. He puts them in the tank because they’re really good at keeping the glass clean. They’re also good at making baby snails. That’s what they do best. I’d describe how they do that, but it’s sort of disgusting, so I’ll spare you the details. I know how, of course, because they don’t mind if we all watch. They’re exhibitionists, I guess. That’s what Slimey told me Jeremy and Scott are, doing that stuff in front of me, but I think they just forget I’m there. The snails don’t forget, so I think they’re the ones who are exhibitionists. That’s what they are, but it’s hard to criticize them. When you come down to it, there isn’t a great deal of privacy in a fish tank.
But the point I’m making is, perhaps, someday, I’ll find another one like Slimey to communicate with, and be able to start another diary.
Or maybe not. You never know how things will work out. Like you probably never knew that someday you’d be reading the diary of a goldfish.
The End