Where All Our Fallen Teeth Go

I dream. 

The fish is large and shiny, pink and crimson bouncing off its scales. I know I've caught a good one. It's nearly as long as my arms... my arms are pretty long, by the way. 

I'm stressed and hungry and waiting for Someone to show me how to gut it. But none know I'm waiting for them. I haven't the nerve to ask for help. Instead, I throw the fish into my car, near to the flax mattress I've been sleeping on. 

The fish has been in there a whole day already. I don't remember when I last ate, if ever. I suppose I once ate, once when I was alive and in a festive mood. I'd feast now if I could. You can't eat a fish until its innards are removed, right? And naturally, it must be cooked. But I know how to cook just fine. 

Perhaps I'll starve, and let the fish stink up my car. I don't even enjoy fishing anyway. Why did I catch this thing? Why did I have a fishing pole? My stomach rumbles, reminding me I need no reason. I had a reason, though. Maybe I just want to be shown how to clean a fish. 

But I don't want to ask. Maybe someone will see I need help. I doubt it. 

The dream draws back to when I first dipped the fishing pole into the creek and pulled out a tiny fish. Too little to eat. Would it even have guts to cut out? Much too little. I throw it back in, then see the large, gaping mouth languidly begging to be caught. I dangle the yellow lure over the darkness. Its mouth clamps shut onto the hook and I yank up a sleek eel. 

Its back is lined with white tooth shaped spikes. It's horrid. Yet it's mine, more so than that tiny fish. I want this one even as it fills me with fear. What if there are no more fish? I stare at the toothish spikes. You know those dreams where you lose all your teeth? This is where they gather; on the backs of sinister eels. 

I let the eel go, throwing it back into the water. I cast once more, far out, and that's when I catch the real beauty that is now decaying in the back of my car. The fish that could save me from hunger if only I knew what it is I must do with my knife. 

Need I wait? Though I desire, need I? 

Perhaps it's time I learn to gut my own fish. Afterall, who needs a knight in shining armor when there's YouTube? 

I awaken. 

Later that day I buy the pictured knife at Farmer's Market. Then I ask my siblings, if perchance I caught a fish, how would I gut it? 

"When would you ever fish?" But they instruct me how.