Mr. Kiriyama was my hero. He sold dead fish at his fish market and living fish at his pet store. He helped me when my brother put a "wolf fish" in my room that kept biting me, even after its head had been cut off. The wolf fish came from the deepest trenches of the ocean, where primeval creatures untouched by millions of years of higher evolution still dwell. Mr. Kiriyama came from Japan.
He was bald, with long hair on the back and sides, and he had a high, bony forehead and a mustache.
He gave me a betta in a plastic box of water, once and told me the fluttering and floating creature was a dream that had been extracted from someone's head, even though we both knew it was just a fish.
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