Finn the Fish and the Silent Room – A Story of Healing, Stillness, and Small Lives That Teach Us How to Stay
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The room was too quiet at first. Not the peaceful kind,
The kind that amplifies every heartbeat, every breath, every passing thought.
I had just returned from my third hospital visit in two months, all for what they called “panic disorder.” I called it drowning in air. Doctors said I needed rest. Space. Stillness. But stillness felt like a threat, not a remedy.
That’s when I was given the fish tank.
A New Kind of Stillness
It was a gift from my sister, more gesture than a solution. A modest tank, filled with smooth pebbles, a few plastic plants, and one lone inhabitant: a small, orange Goldfish.
I named him Finn. I wasn’t trying to be clever; it just felt right. He floated like a question mark. Moved only when he needed to. And he never seemed to mind the silence.
At first, I barely noticed him. I was too busy counting the seconds between panic attacks, too caught in the loop of “what if.”
But Finn… Finn didn’t loop.
He drifted. He paused. He glided from one end of the tank to the other like time didn’t matter.
The Rhythm Beneath the Noise
It took days before I noticed the gentle hum of the filter.
Weeks before I realised Finn had routines, he circled the tall plant every morning, tucked himself near the heater at night. He never rushed, never startled, never fought the glass.
I started sitting near the tank more often, not out of interest at first, but out of necessity. There was something about watching him that made my chest loosen. My mind, usually a flood of spiraling thoughts, began to quiet.
I’d find myself breathing in sync with the gentle sway of the water. I stopped checking my pulse.
I started writing again, just small things. Sentences. Observations.
Like: “Today, Finn blew bubbles near the surface. I think that means he’s happy.”
Healing Isn’t Loud
No one talks much about the part of healing that’s boring. There’s no cinematic breakthrough. No epic transformation.
Just… tiny shifts. A full night’s sleep. A cup of tea that stays warm long enough to finish. A fish, blinking slowly, reminds you how to exist.
Finn didn’t cure me. He didn’t need to. What he offered was a new kind of stillness, one that didn’t feel like a trap, but a rhythm. One I could return to when the world got too sharp.
A Silent Room, Now Alive
Months later, I still live in the same apartment. Same couch. Same tank. Finn is older now, maybe a little slower, but he still makes his rounds.
The room hasn’t changed.
But I have. It’s still quiet, but now it’s the kind of quiet that holds space, not fear.
And in that silence, I’ve found something unexpected: A pulse that no longer races. A peace that doesn’t have to speak.
And a fish who taught me how to stay.
Nadeera Nilupamali
Nadeera Nilupamali
. 300 Stories
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