RIP Fish Number 1

Death is a strange thing.

I recently purchased three fish and a swanky new tank to put them in. I read that it was very feng shui to have two gold fish and one black fish in a tank, so I bought two white fish with little red blobs on their head and one black fish. They represented the colors of the schools I am applying to, dorky I know.

I don't particularly like fish. I don't like to touch them and I wince when I have to touch their tank water but I need life in my room and because I can't go out and adopt a dog, I turned to man's next best friend, the fish.

For a month their life continued swimmingly. They knew that when I turned the light on in the morning fish flakes would rain from the heavens and that if they stared at me long enough while I was doing my homework I would give them a little more food at night. I like to think that they thought of me as a caretaker and that although their memory only lasted for about 5 seconds, that somehow I was remembered.

Yesterday I left my room in the morning to three very happy fish and came back in the afternoon to two happy fish and one distressed finless fish trying to wiggle around the tank. Needless to say, the finless fish died sometime last night and I buried him in the toilet bowl this morning. I swear the two remaining fish are grieving.

I often ponder the idea of destiny. Was my fish destined to have its fins ripped off? I'm not sure. But I like to think that by sacrificing its life it served a larger purpose that will be felt around the world. Its death caused me to write this. It's possible that when people read it they will think about death, tell their loved ones they love them, maybe donate some money to a charity. Essentially it could be because of my fish that someone falls asleep with a full stomach tomorrow. The butterfly effect.

Then again it could have died because it simply wasn't smart enough to stay away from the filter.

Death is a strange thing.