I hate it when things die... even if it is just a five dollar fish that Leslie bought me from Walmart. He had a name, I even learned to love him... a fish. This is exactly why I didn’t want a fish, something that would live only long enough for me to bond with it before it died suddenly. Micki, while a pain at times, sticks around long enough to be a member of the family, piss off a few people, endear herself to a few more, and eat, sleep and poop her way through several years before passing on into the Never never. Years.... get that? Not weeks. Not days. Years.
Zuko, I named him Zuko. He was a beautiful blue and red crown-tail betta. After a week or two I even got to see that he had a distinct personality for a fish. He was feisty, angsty and wild, loving to display his enormous wing span of a tail for me whenever he could. He was a show off. And that was the first tell that he was sick... he stopped showing off.
At least he gave me a good amount of time to prepare myself... at least for a fish. There were about three days of worrying, during which my wife urged me not to. I tried, but then Zuko refused to get better and the “white ick,” as it is so scientifically named, started to grow around his muzzle. (I know fish don’t have muzzles, but that’s the best name for what I saw.) So after a few days the medication started. Two days on this fishy medicine, then the tank got cloudy and apparently toxic from too much medicine, and he started thrashing about one night. Leslie switched him to a travel tank for the night, and then the next day went out to buy him a brand new tank, then we started him on a different medicine.
The next morning? He was dead. Just dead. No movement, just the wiggling back and forth of a dead body in water whenever I moved the tank even slightly. You know the motion I’m talking about, the swaying back and forth with a current that clearly displays a corpse as a corpse.
I had hoped that he would get better, I really did, but I think that somewhere deep down in my heart of hearts I knew that he was going to die young. It’s more than likely that I loved him to death with my good intentions. Moving from your first home to a temporary one and then a new one after that while on two untested drugs over the span of 5 days would probably be enough to kill a sizable human... no matter how well meaning his doctors may be. But a human would have said something... for that matter, so would a dog or a cat... even a rat would have been able to scream in pain or bite you.... clearly informing you that “Hey! This sucks! Leave me alone for a while so I can get better on my own!” I don’t understand fish. I just can’t talk to them. I don’t have that ability. I am not a fish whisperer like my wife. I’m just not.
Micki sits next to me, silently watching the morning, as Taylor showers and Leslie sleeps. Micki, while whiney at times, at least lives. I can respect that. She has a life and all that entails: opinions, goals, desires, feelings, urges (the the urge to scratch on my door at 7 AM every morning, or to poop right beside the litter box). Zuko, and the other fish that my wife has adopted, seem to just... swim. They exist, and this is why all those months ago I firmly decided not to buy one. They are not my kind of pet. I cannot cuddle with it, I cannot play with it, I cannot do anything but form a faint bond with it before it dies suddenly and violently. This is why I bought a cat. She eats, poops and overstays her welcome... and while she is quiet much of the time, and enigmatic in that special way that cats are, Micki is about as subtle as a jackhammer; just my kind of animal. We understand one another.
Perhaps one day, when we are all good and dead, I will have a nice sit down with Zuko and Micki, as well as Gunny and all the other animals that I have loved and have passed on during my life. We’ll talk about this and that, small talk about how awesome heaven is, and then we’ll get down to brass tacks: what did they think about me? What did Gunny really mean when he put his paw on my forearm? Was Micki really as much of a prissy, spoiled princess as I thought she was, or did she have sweet spots? What was Zuko thinking while he was in pain? Did he forgive me? Did he love me back? Did he know that I was trying to save him?
Or maybe, like the divine voice of God, he would look at me from his serene, crystalline lake and say: “Silly human, of course I know that you loved me. Your heart broke at the death of a fish. Despite all the death and sadness and despair around you in your mortal life, you chose to morn a fish. Your compassion and high regard for life are precious, and that is why you are now here with us, because you placed your faith in the One who created that precious life. Now... let’s go swimming!”
Attempting to understand something as strange and alien as a fish will never come easily to me. Perhaps, though difficult, I will continue to try. Regardless, Zuko is dead, and I loved him. His was a life, through brief, composed of fins, fury and righteous indignation. I will miss him.
No comments:
Post a Comment