The Tank by Jordan Smith
STUFF. We’re surrounded by stuff in life…and in the TCS classroom. Stuff we barely notice. The students were challenged to focus their creativity on a tangible bit of the room they occupy every day.
JORDAN…takes up the plight of the long-suffering voiceless inhabitants of the fish tank…Fish Lives Matter, Too.
The Tank
You would think that I love my life, but I don’t. I’m the most mistreated animal in history, besides hamsters. You flush me down the toilet when you don’t need me anymore. I get stuck in the same, musty tank for days without it being cleaned. I bet you already knew this, but I’m a fish. Specifically, a fish in The Community School. Of course, Hector forgot to feed us again, like he always does. I don’t know why Mr. Tom thought it was a good idea to put our lives in the hands of the most forgetful person in the school.
Also, my health makes life so much harder. I have a bad case of fish asthma. My gills can’t take in enough water, so I feel every bit of pressure in my tiny fish heart. Of course these humans don’t understand anything about fish. That’s why I’m planning to gather all of the fish in the tank for a meeting. We can’t keep living like this under the authoritarian rule of the homosapien species. I call this revolution Fish Lives Matter, or FLM for short. We have been abused, tortured, and eaten for years without a second thought.
Every other object in the room has it easy, because they’re not living things. They don’t go through the struggles we have to deal with. Being a book on the shelf wouldn’t be so bad, but no. I had to get stuck as a boring fish that nobody cares about. The only thing that’s keeping me around is my beautiful, shiny scales. I’ll probably get replaced soon if I don’t stay alive long enough to make it past December. I may have a better tank than most fish, but that still doesn’t make life any easier.
Maybe my life would have been better as a hermit crab or one of the snails that cleans the tank. I would give anything to see the world outside of this tiny classroom. I just want to appreciate the value of life and fight fish oppression without being another soul flushed down the toilet. Tonight, Fish Lives Matter will be in full effect.
Jordan Smith
11/14/25