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.
