What used to be a slice of heaven...

In an obscure little corner about a block from where I live is a slice of heaven on Earth. There is a narrow, short alley leading to this paradise, sort of strange considering how positively ugly the pathway looked with ordinary cement walls on both sides and how extraordinary the place it led to was. This was from way back in my childhood days when the sun was a friend and we were tireless and taut. I would often go there with my cousins to buy beautiful little creatures that we put in our aquariums and tiny little ponds.



I could still very well remember the owner's name. We called him Mr. Vic. HE seemed like a magician to me. He had the "water" thumb. He sold and bred freshwater fishes of almost all varieties. Everywhere in his little nook where small, beautiful, green ponds filled with the most vibrant and beautiful fishes I have ever seen. There were platys, swordtails, carps and kois, plecostomuses, mollies, barbs among so many things. His ponds were very tastefully decorated too with well-placed lotuses and weeds. Fishes of all sizes swam and glided gracefully along the moss-covered bottoms and their leafy surroundings. There were canopy-like stretches of trees to keep his charming little nook cool and sort of darkish which added to the mystique of the place in my imagination.



It was all just so overwhelming for me that I thought I could never leave this place. I even thought of living there as his surrogate daughter or his son for old times' sake haha! It would have been a perfect scenario for me. I guess it was my love for everything fluid and aquatic and placid which had me thrilled to be always going there and spending a considerable time before leaving. I was penniless way back then and I could not buy too many of his finned merchandise...




As I look back from the outside at this place now that I am older, a bit more mature and perhaps with some cynicism to me, I've often thought how time has slipped by too fast for me to forget that I used to marvel at how beautiful this place used to be. How does it look inside now? I probably would never get a chance to see it considering it is closed in the evenings and I am now most of the time a creature of the night and the sun has become an enemy? Is the man still alive and does he still have the magic in him? Does the place still hold an allure to me if I am led to it again? Maybe it will hold a different meaning for me now that I have experienced too many things, both bad and good? It might be a cure for my depressive episodes these days or an abomination of a reminder from my once-monotonous childhood days?




Isn't life ironic? Now that I'm earning money it seems I have almost lost my desire for the beautiful, little things in his mystical, little nook? Or is this indicative of deeper things such as a general disinterest for so many things that I used to like? Have I lost my passion for the simpler joys that the world has to offer? Maybe this is the process of moving on to more fruitful endeavors or have I just lost myself in the tepid, murky waters of time and life?