Block Nine Has Lost Its Christmas Carp

Story Time is original short fiction. The characters, places and events in this story are invented.

22 December

Halina Wróbel (fl. 2) [18:04]
Who has been in the suszarnia. The tub is empty. EMPTY. Water still there, fish not.

Halina Wróbel (fl. 2) [18:04]
Before anyone asks, yes, I looked under the drying rack.

Bożena Kaczmarek (Chair, fl. 3) [18:06]
Good evening, everyone. Let us stay calm. Carp do not walk. Somebody has moved him for a good reason and will tell us shortly.

Mirek Dudek (fl. 5) [18:07]
Nine złoty I paid. Nine złoty and two hours queuing at Górniak in sleet. I would like the good reason in writing.

Ryszard Pawlak (fl. 5) [18:09]
Was the basement door locked? Because Block Seven has been looking at our carp since Sunday. Their carp is small. Everyone knows their carp is small.

Jolanta Mazur (fl. 3) [18:10]
Ryszard, nobody from Block Seven has been looking at anything. They have their own tub.

Ryszard Pawlak (fl. 5) [18:10]
That is exactly what they would want you to think.

Bożena Kaczmarek (Chair, fl. 3) [18:13]
The door was locked at noon when I checked the water temperature. There are three keys: mine, Pan Zdzisław's, and the spare on the hook in the stairwell, which I have said for eleven years should not be on a hook in the stairwell.

Halina Wróbel (fl. 2) [18:15]
I will just say, without accusing anyone, that a certain person on floor four put a leaflet under every door last week titled "Your Bathtub Is a Prison."

Kacper Nowicki (fl. 4) [18:17]
It was titled "Consider a Meatless Wigilia." The prison part was a subheading. And I was at the library until five, there is a librarian who can confirm it, she shushed me twice.

Mirek Dudek (fl. 5) [18:18]
A librarian. Very convenient.

Kacper Nowicki (fl. 4) [18:18]
How is a librarian convenient??

Bożena Kaczmarek (Chair, fl. 3) [18:20]
Nobody is accusing Kacper. Kacper helped carry the tub water down in buckets on Monday, which is more than some people did.

Mirek Dudek (fl. 5) [18:20]
I have a back.

Stanisława Lis (fl. 1) [18:31]
GOOD EVENING THIS IS STANISŁAWA. MY GRANDSON SAYS I AM SHOUTING BUT I CANNOT FIND THE SMALL LETTERS. KLEOFAS HAS BEEN ON MY BED SINCE LUNCH. HE IS FOURTEEN AND HE DOES NOT GO DOWN STAIRS. HE BARELY GOES TO HIS BOWL.

Jolanta Mazur (fl. 3) [18:32]
Nobody thought it was Kleofas, Pani Stanisława.

Ryszard Pawlak (fl. 5) [18:32]
I did a little.

Stanisława Lis (fl. 1) [18:34]
HE SMELLS OF NOTHING. I CHECKED HIS WHISKERS.

Bożena Kaczmarek (Chair, fl. 3) [18:40]
Thank you, Pani Stanisława. Kleofas is cleared. Please, everyone, consider this: in four days I give the committee to someone younger. I have run this building like the number 12 tram, on time and with nobody falling off. I would like my last Wigilia as chair to involve a carp. That is all. One carp.

Halina Wróbel (fl. 2) [19:52]
I want to say that I am deeply sorry for the loss of the carp. I also want to say that herring would never have gone missing, because herring comes in a jar.

Mirek Dudek (fl. 5) [19:53]
There it is.

Jolanta Mazur (fl. 3) [19:53]
Halina.

Halina Wróbel (fl. 2) [19:54]
What? I lost the vote in November fairly, seven to six, I am not a bad loser, I am simply someone who had a point.

Ryszard Pawlak (fl. 5) [19:55]
Motive, means, a key on a hook. I am only listing.

Halina Wróbel (fl. 2) [19:56]
I was making makowiec all afternoon. Half the building saw it cooling on my balcony. You don't steal a carp with poppy seed up to your elbows.

Kacper Nowicki (fl. 4) [19:57]
I can confirm the makowiec. I could smell it through my floor. It was torture, honestly.

Halina Wróbel (fl. 2) [19:58]
Thank you, Kacper. I will bring you a slice. It has no animals in it except eggs. And butter. Look, mostly no animals.

Bożena Kaczmarek (Chair, fl. 3) [20:03]
I am going to say this once. Every person on this chat lives within forty metres of every other person. On Saturday we will all smell each other's mushroom soup through the vents. I am not going to have anyone pass Halina on the stairs thinking she is a fish thief, or Kacper, or a fourteen-year-old cat. We will find the carp, or we will not, and either way we will eat together on the 26th as planned.

Mirek Dudek (fl. 5) [20:04]
Eat what

Bożena Kaczmarek (Chair, fl. 3) [20:04]
Mirek.

23 December

Zdzisław Bąk (Administrator) [07:15]
Good morning. I have only now seen 140 messages. I was on night shift at the depot. I will check the camera footage from the basement corridor.

Jolanta Mazur (fl. 3) [07:18]
Pan Zdzisław, that camera is the one you bought from the market in 2009. It has no wires.

Zdzisław Bąk (Administrator) [07:19]
It has a red light. That is what matters for deterrence.

Ryszard Pawlak (fl. 5) [07:21]
Then the deterrence failed. I went down at six with a torch. There are wet marks from the tub to the back door. Small marks. Also something was dragged. I have photographed everything.

Ryszard Pawlak (fl. 5) [07:21]
[photo]

Ryszard Pawlak (fl. 5) [07:22]
[photo]

Kacper Nowicki (fl. 4) [07:24]
Ryszard, that second one is your slipper.

Ryszard Pawlak (fl. 5) [07:24]
For scale.

Bożena Kaczmarek (Chair, fl. 3) [07:30]
Small marks. Small. Like a child's boot, or a cat, or a man who walks on his toes. I am not saying which. I am going down to look.

Stanisława Lis (fl. 1) [07:41]
KLEOFAS IS STILL ON THE BED. I PUT A SAUCER OF MILK BY THE DOOR TO TEST HIM. HE DID NOT GET UP. HE IS INNOCENT AND ALSO VERY LAZY.

Kacper Nowicki (fl. 4) [08:02]
OK, I have been thinking. If the carp is really gone I will go to Górniak with Mirek and buy another one. I will hold the bag. I won't enjoy it but it's two days before Christmas and I don't want Pani Bożena's last year to be the year of no fish.

Mirek Dudek (fl. 5) [08:03]
...

Mirek Dudek (fl. 5) [08:03]
That is decent of you, boy. I take back the librarian.

Halina Wróbel (fl. 2) [08:05]
I will put in nine złoty again. And I will make herring as well, as a backup, not as a victory. Nobody needs to call it a victory.

Jolanta Mazur (fl. 3) [08:05]
Nobody was going to.

Halina Wróbel (fl. 2) [08:06]
Good.

Bożena Kaczmarek (Chair, fl. 3) [08:19]
Report from the basement. The marks go out the back door into the courtyard. The spare key is on its hook, but the hook is now lower. Someone moved the hook down. To a height of about one metre.

Ryszard Pawlak (fl. 5) [08:20]
A dwarf. I said Block Seven.

Bożena Kaczmarek (Chair, fl. 3) [08:20]
Ryszard, please put the kettle on and stop typing.

Zdzisław Bąk (Administrator) [09:47]
Everyone. Please look out of your windows at the fountain.

Jolanta Mazur (fl. 3) [09:48]
The fountain that hasn't worked since 1994?

Zdzisław Bąk (Administrator) [09:48]
That one.

Zdzisław Bąk (Administrator) [09:50]
[photo]

Kacper Nowicki (fl. 4) [09:50]
IS THAT HIM

Halina Wróbel (fl. 2) [09:51]
He is moving! There is a hole in the ice and he is moving!

Zdzisław Bąk (Administrator) [09:56]
I must now make a statement on behalf of my household. Antoś, aged six, last night after his bath, took the spare key, which he could reach because last week I lowered the hook to fix the plaster and did not raise it again. He carried the carp out in his beach bucket in three trips. I asked him why three trips. He said the carp kept jumping out and he had to apologise to it each time.

Zdzisław Bąk (Administrator) [09:57]
He broke the ice with my good hammer. The rainwater in the fountain is deep enough at the middle. He says a fish at Christmas should be able to see the stars, the same as everyone. He heard Kacper say "prison" on the stairs.

Kacper Nowicki (fl. 4) [09:58]
Oh no.

Kacper Nowicki (fl. 4) [09:58]
I mean. Oh no, but also, good boy.

Zdzisław Bąk (Administrator) [10:01]
He is grounded from the hammer. He would like to apologise to the building. He is dictating: "I am sorry I did not ask. The fish is called nothing yet. Please do not eat him he looked at me."

Stanisława Lis (fl. 1) [10:04]
I TOLD YOU KLEOFAS WAS INNOCENT. I AM GOING TO TELL HIM NOW.

Mirek Dudek (fl. 5) [10:06]
So we are getting him out and back in the tub, yes? Wigilia is tomorrow.

Halina Wróbel (fl. 2) [10:09]
Mirek, I have four jars of herring and a child who has looked into a carp's eyes. I am not going to be the woman who ate that carp.

Ryszard Pawlak (fl. 5) [10:10]
For the record, the small footprints. I was correct about small.

Bożena Kaczmarek (Chair, fl. 3) [10:24]
I have been standing at my window for twenty minutes watching thirteen grown adults and one six-year-old peer into a broken fountain. As chair, for four more days, I put a motion. Motion: the carp remains in the courtyard fountain as a resident of Block Nine, with an aerating pump which Pan Zdzisław will install, since he is the one who lowered the hook. Wigilia will be herring, by Halina, and Kacper's mushroom pierogi. Additionally, the carp shall be named. Proposed name: Zdzisław.

Zdzisław Bąk (Administrator) [10:25]
Absolutely not.

Jolanta Mazur (fl. 3) [10:25]
For.

Kacper Nowicki (fl. 4) [10:25]
FOR

Halina Wróbel (fl. 2) [10:26]
For. And herring is not a victory.

Stanisława Lis (fl. 1) [10:27]
FOR. KLEOFAS ALSO FOR BUT HE DOES NOT HAVE A FLAT.

Ryszard Pawlak (fl. 5) [10:28]
For, on condition that we watch Block Seven closely.

Mirek Dudek (fl. 5) [10:30]
Against. I want it noted I paid nine złoty for a fish I now have to say good morning to.

Bożena Kaczmarek (Chair, fl. 3) [11:42]
Final count, including the Kowalczyks, the Sobczaks, both Pietrzaks and Pani Danuta by telephone: eleven for, two against. The motion carries. Welcome to Block Nine, Zdzisław.

Zdzisław Bąk (Administrator) [11:43]
Antoś says thank you. I say nothing.

Bożena Kaczmarek (Chair, fl. 3) [11:51]
One more item, then I will leave you to your baking. On the 27th I step down. I had planned to recommend Jolanta, who is sensible. I am changing my recommendation to Halina, who lost a vote fairly, made the backup anyway and did not call it a victory once. Mostly. Duties include the spare key, which I am today screwing back to a height of two metres, and the morning check on the fountain.

Halina Wróbel (fl. 2) [11:53]
I accept. First act as chair-elect: the hook stays at two metres, and somebody buys that fish proper food, because I am not feeding him my makowiec.

Kacper Nowicki (fl. 4) [11:53]
I'll go to the pet shop.

Mirek Dudek (fl. 5) [11:54]
I will go with you. Someone has to make sure he is not spoiled.