The Meaning of the Bubbles

There was a goldfish in the corner of a tank.
Whenever someone came near, the other goldfish would gather around, going, “Food! Food!” But this one goldfish just listened closely to the humans talking.

One day, the owner said, “This goldfish never warms up to us.”
The goldfish replied in its head, “What do you mean by ‘warm up to’?”

Then the owner laughed and said, “See? There you go thinking about difficult things again.”
The goldfish thought, “Again, I didn’t get to hear what I wanted to hear.”

Years passed, and the goldfish got a little wiser.
“Well, I guess there’s no point explaining it to this person.”
On days when it thought that, it would just swim around, blowing bubbles.

But one day, someone a little different came up to the tank.

The person didn’t put any food in. Instead, they asked, “What did those bubbles you just made mean?”

The goldfish was surprised.
No one had ever asked what its bubbles meant before.
It got excited and kept blowing bubbles for about an hour.

But in the end, the person said, “...Sorry. I guess I still don’t understand goldfish language.”

The goldfish couldn’t help laughing.
“If you stayed with me that long, that’s enough.”

From then on, the goldfish came to like people who said, “I don’t know.”