What Do Fish Have to Do With Anything?

Illness appears as a recurring motif across several stories, often serving as a metaphor for hidden suffering, inner trauma, and the possibility of transformation. In the first story, Willie conceives of unhappiness itself as a form of illness. This framing allows him to understand his mother’s depression in more compassionate terms, for he realizes that her unhappiness is not her fault and reasons that if it is an illness, it may also have a cure. This conception keeps Willie hopeful. 

In “The Goodness of Matt Kaizer,” illness appears again in Mr. Bataky’s condition, which drives him to seek forgiveness for his past wrongs. Upon witnessing Mr. Bataky’s vulnerability, Matt must reevaluate his own rebellion and seek instead to embody empathy and attain moral growth. Finally, illness plays a role in “Talk to Me,” when Eve’s cats become sick and the disease spreads among them. The distemper transforms her relationship with the cats, intensifying her guilt and fear until her perception of being haunted forces her to confront her own vulnerability. In each case, illness functions less as a physical reality and more as a mirror of the characters’ emotional pain, prompting them to question themselves, and in some cases, to find new paths forward.

The boxes in “What’s Inside” serve as a symbol of self-worth, secrecy, and the hidden nature of human suffering. At first, the narrator takes pride in his ability to craft sturdy, well-made boxes in class. For him, the boxes represent personal capability, self-worth, and proof that he can make something useful and meaningful. However, this symbolism is overturned when Danny asks him to hide a gun inside one of the boxes to create a perverse game of chance that will lead to either life or suicide. Suddenly, the box shifts from a symbol of creation to one of destruction, reflecting Danny’s despair and his desire to give meaning to his life through a final, violent act. The sealed nature of the box also symbolizes the idea that people cannot easily see into another’s inner life. Like the contents of the box, Danny’s suffering is hidden from others. However, when the narrator ultimately hides the gun rather than putting it in one of the boxes, he reimagines the box’s emptiness not as hopelessness but as possibility. The act of opening the boxes thus becomes a metaphor for opening up emotionally, and this shift transforms a dire symbol of isolation into one of renewed potential and connection.