I set to work on a list of possible names for my goldfish. I hope I am not spoiling anything by telling you that I the time I spent thinking up possible names for my fish far exceeded the time I got to spend with the actual fish. Because the fish died. But I am getting ahead of myself.
My birthday was on a Thursday that year (it’s important to remember the days in this story, because there are so few of them). I got my fish at my birthday party and I was delighted that there were two, and not just the one that I asked for (Adam said that one fish looked too lonely in there). I was pretty happy because it meant I got to use two of the names from my very long list. I named the fish Bruce (after a guy who read the trivia questions at a trivia night that Adam and I liked to go to) and Green Bean (after one of my favorite foods). In a lot of the pictures of my birthday party, you can see the little guys just swimming away in the background, blissfully unaware of the awful dooms that await them.
Friday I watched them swim for awhile, and then I went to class and had lunch with Adam. “I just can’t bear to be away from them,” I remember saying. “It must be how mothers feel when they take children to day care so they can go to work. I feel like I’m missing so much of their development.” I can acknowledge that perhaps this response was “overdramatic” and that I probably have no idea what it’s like to miss your children’s developmental milestones. What I’m trying to get across is that these fish were really fucking important to me.
Saturday morning, my heart shattered into a million little pieces. I awoke, and looked over to my dresser, where I had put the bowl so I could see it when I first woke up. Green Bean was floating at the top of the bowl! What a miserable day. I had to try to get one dead goldfish out of the bowl and flush him and then study for a test. Adam did admit that the guy at the pet store might have suggested that the bowl was not big enough for two goldfish. I changed the water and tried to move on.
It was clear, though, that Bruce never recovered from losing Green Bean. On Saturday and Sunday, it was clear that he was looking for something, and he would look out at me with his big heartbroken fish eyes, seemingly asking, “Where is my brother? Where is my friend? Where is my Green Bean?” And I, dealing with my own pain, had no answers to give him.
Sunday evening, I was watching Bruce swim and ruminating on loss. How someone we had known for such a short time had affected us both so much. And then, Bruce just lost it. Perhaps the grief of being a lone goldfish was too much. But as I watched, he had what must have been the equivalent of a fish seizure, or he committed some form of fish suicide. I can still see it in my head, but it’s hard to describe. He swam into the side of the bowl at a high speed, and then swam to the top really fast, and then all of a sudden he turned over and he was dead. I HAD TO SIT THERE AND WATCH MY FISH DIE. I don’t know if anyone believed that I saw the actual moment of passing, but I am telling you, I have seen the life force leave a being. And even a being so small as a fish, well, that is hard to watch.
As you might imagine, it’s hard to just get over that. And I have not had anything, not even a plant to take care of in the past few years because it’s just too likely that I will kill it or it will die. And I don’t know exactly what has changed, if it’s sheer hope and optimism from moving to a new place and starting over, but today I got a new fish.
He is a beta and I have named him Alvin. I named him Alvin because he is red, and because I recently saw the movie “Alvin and the Chipmunks.” I just laughed every time that squeaky chipmunk talked. Plus when I come out of my room in the morning, and if Alvin is doing something zany or making trouble, I can wave my hands in the air and go, “ALVIN!” Just like Dave in the movie/tv show. It will be hilarious.
So far Alvin’s favorite things to do are swim around the perimeter of the bowl, swim up to the top of the water, and hover at random places. He has this tail that looks kind of like fringe so I think he looks like he is dressed to compete on Dancing with the Stars. I have not fed him yet but the pet store lady says that he will just go apeshit for bloodworms, so now I have dried bloodworms in my apartment. It might be worth noting that I don't really have any human food in my kitchen right now, but I have dried bloodworms. Who am I? Right now he is on my kitchen counter which hopefully won’t present too many ethical problems, because I don’t really cook fish in my apartment (I don’t really cook anything in my apartment). Although it might be a salmonella risk?
Anyways, the pet store lady said he could last as long as seven years if I take care of him right, so hopefully I won’t have another sad story about fish death in seven days or something. I mean, if this goes well, who knows what I’ll get next. Maybe a plant!
Meet the newest member of the family:
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