The Conversation Beneath the Lily Leaves

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In the quiet, green-filtered world beneath the pond’s surface, two goldfish drifted in slow spirals of sunlight and shadow. One, round and splendid as a lantern, glimmered with a body of molten gold and soft white patches. The other, slender and speckled, carried an air of restless curiosity, his fins trailing like silk ribbons in the current.

They met each morning near the reeds, where bubbles rose from the pond floor and the snails whispered secrets no one else could hear.

“You dream too much,” said the round one, whose name was Mikan.
“And you never dream at all,” replied Shiro, flicking his tail like a brushstroke of defiance.

Mikan was born in a porcelain bowl, in a house of red tiles and human voices. He remembered music that came from above the water, light that broke into laughter. Shiro, however, had never known glass walls or the sound of fingers tapping on a tank. He had been born in the wild pond, where frogs sang of storms and the moon touched the lilies like a lover.

“Out there,” Mikan said wistfully, “there are stories. Lanterns. Festivals. Children who drop crumbs like rain.”
“And out here,” said Shiro, “there are dragonflies and thunder and the taste of rain itself. You speak as if the sky belongs to them.”

A silence bloomed between them. Only the soft clinking of reeds filled the space.

Mikan turned slowly, his broad fins glowing with the light that filtered down from the surface. “Perhaps we are both right,” he murmured. “Perhaps the world above dreams of us, too.”

Shiro thought about that — the way his reflection shimmered on the surface each dawn, half real, half illusion. He wondered if, somewhere above, a pair of eyes watched him with the same longing.

Then came the sound — distant and low — of footsteps near the edge of the pond. Ripples broke their mirrored world. A child’s hand cast crumbs upon the water.

Both fish rose instinctively, side by side, to meet the falling stars of bread.

When the pond stilled again, and the light returned to calm, Shiro said quietly, “Maybe the dream isn’t up there or down here. Maybe it’s the space between.”

Mikan smiled, his scales catching the last shimmer of the sun. “Then let’s stay here,” he said, “and keep dreaming.”

And so they did — two flickers of gold and white, circling each other gently, beneath the whispering reeds — the conversation never ending, only flowing.