the missing

My husband came home last week with a bag of feeder fish. Feeder fish are tiny fish whose lives are worth nothing except the calories they offer to their predators. I use the term predators loosely because there's no real challenge involved. The feeder fish are dumped into the tank and as they look around at their new home and start to swim they are eaten. Chomp. One bite, sometimes two. I watched in bewildered dismay as these little golden fish were slain one by one. I saw in their innocent eyes only the interested surprise of a new life opening up before them. "A brand new world...." they seemed to begin to sing.
And my children! They were like the crowds in ancient Rome! Calling for blood; calling for death; cheering every time a feeder fish disappeared into the mouth of one of the cyclids.
Was I the only one who cared? Yes. It was up to me to do something.
I bargained with my husband to let me save one, just one! There was a pretty one swimming amid the plastic sea kelp. She was gold and white and would be beautiful if she just got the chance to grow up...
Finally he relented and in one smooth movement I had the net out and opened the top of the big tank and got her and put her in the smaller tank with our bloated, ungainly goldfish aptly named Giant. I was so excited to grant her a chance at life.
Over the next couple of days I glanced into the tank to check on her and she seemed confused but very much alive and ... present.
Then she was gone.
I thought initially that she was just out of view. Perhaps inside the little castle or behind Giant. Then, because she seemed so consistantly out of view, I took a closer look. There was nothing to see.
I thought maybe my husband took her and fed her to the cyclids when I was out of the room but when I asked him he denied it. I believe him. He too seemed perplexed as to the location of the missing fish. He too suggested that maybe she was in the castle. Then when he cleaned the fish tank he confirmed my suspicions: she was gone.
I've done a lot of thinking about this mystery and I have a couple of theories. One involves a tiny tear in the fabric of our universe. The other is that Giant ate her. But, as far as I know, goldfish don't eat other fish.
So now, fishless, we move on with our lives. What else can we do? We were not given the benefit of closure.

running reverently through a funeral

Most Fridays I go to a morning meeting with child care at a church. The child care room is on the main floor and the meeting is downstairs. Today as I pulled into the parking lot I noticed a hearse. "Oooooooo... funeral." I said softly to myself, hoping to avoid my 2 year old's inevitable: "What's a funeral?" I field many questions these days from my little man in the back seat. So we walk together through the doors of the church and to the right of us is a dead body in an open casket. Ooooooo... viewing. I think. A lady comes up to me and offers me a program. "I am actually just here for the meeting downstairs." I say to her and then add "I'm sorry for interrupting the..."and gesture toward the corpse. "Oh, it's ok." she says with a smile. My son and I quietly and unobstrusively make our way down the hall to the child care room. I drop him off and say to the babysitter, "So... dead body in the front hall eh?" She raises her eyebrows and nods. I head down to my meeting, making sure to keep my gaze appropriately downcast as I walk through the gathering mourners.
The meeting goes well, though more subdued than usual.

Afterwards, I go back to collect my son. I open the baby gate at the door and say hello and the babysitter tells me that O went potty. "In the toilet?!" I ask. "Yes." she confirms. I look down and O is gone. He is running down the hall toward the front door of the church which I remember is open. Then, as I am rushing after him with as much dignity as I can, I remember the casket is also open. Oh Lord.
I have been in this situation before and have not hesitated to yell "Stop that BABY!!" But I don't think it would be appropriate given the current circumstances. So I just run, my eyes cast downward, giving respect to the recently departed and his grieving group of family members and friends. I reach the end of the hall and see the door is open and empty. Then I catch a flash of O's yellow fireman raincoat as he flees through another door into the offices of the church. I race after him... quietly. He's down the hall and into another room: the private office of the pastor who is removing his formal vestments. He turns and I say, "Sorry... little kid..." as I grab O and retreat. "It's ok." the pastor replies with a smile. I am walking back down the hall and I see a picture of Jesus. And he's looking right at me. Beseechingly. "At a funeral?" he seems to be asking. "Really?" I don't know how to respond. I just give him a bewildered shrug and guide my little monster back out to our car.

fish as a pastime

My husband got a fish tank for Christmas and two fish. He had been yearning for an aquarium for years. He told me many times how relaxing it would be to sit and watch the fish glide gently though the water. I watched him as he bustled happily about, preparing a perfect environment for his new friends. Decorations, ph level, water temperature, aquarium salt, a book about cyclids ( the type of fish he got ), sand for the bottom of the tank, a pump, a little tiny net for fish transfers,fish food, and a bigger tank. Then he got another fish.
Within hours, the new fish had been murdered. By the bigger orange cyclid. So my husband purchased another fish. And more paraphenalia to supposedly insure its safety. We figured that the newest fish had been left in his pet store bag too long while the tank was prepared because it died.
My husband went and got another fish. Another fish that the fish guy at the store said would be a match for Sarah:the murdering cyclid. We decided to name him Spartacus... if he made it.
Sarah had met her match. He bobbed. He weaved. He floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee. Sarah got nothing for her trouble but tired.
Then my husband decided to get a few goldfish. To be transferred later to the smaller tank for the children. That night we watched as one hapless goldfish was slowly mutilated for four hours. My husband asked me, "Should we take it out?" after Sarah ate its eyeballs and tore its fins to shreds. I told him we were bound by our prime directive.
The other two goldfish flitted around the tank in a panic as their comrad sightlessly tried to swim out of Sarah's reach. "Help us!" their eyes screamed at us through the aquarium glass. "Please!!!"
"Can we transfer them now?" I asked my spouse, transfixed by the carnage. "This is a horror show."
The next morning we found the hollowed out carcass of the unfortunate goldfish drifting amid the plastic kelp. My husband asked if I wanted to see it before he fished it out. I didn't. I had seen too much. I sought refuge in my coffee and meditation books. I tried not to think about the fact that I had stood by and done nothing as poor Napolean was slaughtered. Well, I had sat by and half watched our Thursday night TV line-up feeling uncomfortable. We determined that his flowing fins had made him different and drawn Sarah's ire, that he was simply too beautiful for this world. Then my husband put him down the garbage disposal.

Then he transfered the other two fish to the smaller tank. They had developed black spots as a result, I'm sure, of the stress. They are doing much better now.

So. Fish. They are so much less relaxing than I thought they'd be.