Last night I went to feed the fish and tossed a couple pellets in. Normally, these are snapped up right away by "Jaws", one of our four fish, the one I've been training to be a goldfish piranha by giving him bloody mosquitoes I've slapped. He didn't bite. I looked around and couldn't find him. We have a lot of rocks and junk in our rock tank, so it's easy to miss a fish. The longer I looked, the more the sinking feeling grew. I didn't want to, but I looked down on the ground around the tank.
See, back when we got Jaws, he had er, a little too much bounce in his step. The first night, he jumped out of the tank twice. Then he seemed to settle down or realized that might be hazardous to his health. Every now and then though, we still heard the "bloop" sound of him doing a Free Willy. I looked around and was relieved to find no dead goldfish. Then I thought maybe our cats might have snagged him. Or the ayi (cleaning lady). No luck. Finally, I pull back the curtains, and there in the shadows of the corner, I see a shadow that looks like... a fish.
I wimped out. I made Sarah look and left the room. "It's him" she goes. I never thought I'd feel bad about a fish (we've probably flushed a dozen down the toilet in the past 18 months). But this guy was a survivor. It was a real bummer. And as I watched the other fish, I wondered what they were thinking. "Hey where'd that other guy go?" or did they think he escaped to freedom, kind of like in "The Running Man"?
Rest in peace little dude
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