A Fish Called Lazarus

I'm re-posting this today for a reason. More details at the end of the post.

I think I lost of few of the valued original comments too and I'm sorry about that... as well as other things.

My son was given a goldfish as a birthday present when he was two. He came in a little bowl. The fish, that is, not my son.

He’s twelve now. My son, that is…

The fish is still there, much bigger, much older.

Still there.

Back when he arrived, I could only stand to look at him in that little bowl for a few days. It wasn’t good. So I went out and bought him a sizeable tank, an air pump, water filter, stones. 

The fish settled in.

My son was too small to look after him so the job fell to me. It is in my nature to take care of everything in my world (except me) so the fishy did all right for himself.

He was called ‘Goldie’ back then.

Not any more.

The only thing I didn’t get for Goldie’s tank was a lid. I tell a lie. I did get a lid but I didn’t like the aesthetic of it and I figured Goldie might like to see the ceiling so I left it off.

Goldie has had a good life, I think. He had other goldfish, for company along the way ,who lasted some years and then faded away. He has mated in his tank and produced offspring. He had a Plecostomus in there for a while too but that really didn’t work out – another story.

This is this story…

One morning, some years ago, I went into the kitchen, pottered around in a muddy pre-work fashion, and suddenly missed the occasional peripheral flash from the tank. I looked in. Goldie was not there.

He was, in fact, on the hard-tiled floor, several metres from the tank.

I bent to examine him. He was unmoving and his tail was bent upwards at the rear. I pinched his tail between thumb and forefinger and peeled him off the floor. All the scales on the ‘floor-side’ were left stuck to the tiles. He was stiff and he was cold.

 

I headed sadly for the bin. 

It is a surprising fact that goldfish will jump dramatically from their tank from time to time. Perhaps the nutrient level in the water had risen to an inhospitable level – whatever the reason, Goldie had bailed out and there had been no lid to stop her.

(Incidentally, ‘she’ became feminine after ‘she’ jumped out, read what you will into that).

So there I was - poised over the bin. What would my son say when he heard I had killed his fish? Better, I reasoned, to show him the lifeless body rather than just tell him about it. There was a bucket of water in the utility which I kept for topping up the tank. I plopped the fish into it and went to get ready for work. 

That evening, I brought my son out to the bucket to introduce him to one of the more inescapable facts of life. We both peered nervously over the rim. Goldie was down there, lying on her side. But one of her fins was flapping feebly to and fro… to and fro…

For weeks Goldie was a Zombie-Corpse-Fish, tattered and torn, weak and ugly. But ‘She’ gradually strengthened back into a ‘He’. And ‘He’ survived. Within a surprisingly-short period of time, the scales all grew back, the jaunty gait returned. 

So these days ‘Goldie’ is known to us as ‘Lazarus’. 

I would never in my life have bought a goldfish for myself but this little creature has rewarded me plenty for the small bit of care I have dished out over the years. 

Sometimes when I come home stressed or fed-up, I’ll sit and watch the little fella swim - so beautifully-formed against the artificially-induced current that swirls around within the tank.

And, when I finally rise to go, I often find that my sitting has done me some modicum of good.

So here’s to the next ten years Goldie… I mean Lazarus.

It’s been emotional.

13th March 2009: Eleven years and three hundred and sixty four days since he came into our home as an unwelcome present for our (then) two year old, the aforementioned fish died gently. Don't be sad, he had a good life and gave much pleasure in return.

Even the original Lazarus had to die again sometime.

Flat Head Fishing

While traveling the world, I promised myself that we would fish in some memorable and exotic places.

But when we arrived in Queensland, Australia, our year-long adventure was almost over and not a single fish had been landed.

We stumbled off the bus in Rockhampton without enough cash to keep traveling slowly to Sydney, where our flight home awaited.

The only solution was to lie low at the hostel on Great Keppel Island, spend absolutely no money, and then make a final dash on the midnight bus all the way down to the airport in Botany Bay. But what can you do on a tropical island with hardly any money? Trish settled for lying on the beach beneath a sunscreen-ridden paperback but I knew the time had arrived at last - I was going to fish!

A shack beside the beach offered rods and bait for three dollars a day. After begging the money from the kitty, arguing that we could eat whatever I caught, I proudly set off down to the impossibly blue Pacific Ocean.

I hooked up my bait and cast out into the waves. Straight away, I felt the tell-tale twitch on the line which meant that something was nibbling at my bait. I drew the rod upwards in a 'strike', to lodge the hook in the fishes mouth, then started to reel him in.

But the line was slack and came in far too easily. My hook came back to me bare, its tasty piece of squid all gone. I baited up again, cast again and the same thing happened again - good bite, good strike, good bye.

All morning I baited, cast, struck and lost with infuriating regularity. A passing Australian couple giggled, amused by this weedy translucent fool who patently couldn't fish for nuts.

When all my bait was gone, I hauled myself back to the tackle shack, frustrated, dejected and with no dinner to offer my girlfriend. The owner was amused to see me back so soon.

"The Fish," he said, " They're called ‘Flat Head’ and you're going about them all wrong. Let me give you a tip…"

As well as his advice he also gave me a free refill of squid.

Back I went to do battle one last time.

I had just cast the first of my new bait into the waves when the Australian couple came smirking back from their walk.

"'Devil for punishment, mate?" the Aussie said.

At that moment I got a bite, the thirty-second of the day. I turned, put the rod over my shoulder and ran full speed off up the beach to where Trish was reading her book.

She jumped up.

"What is it, what's wrong?" she cried.

I stopped beside her and turned.

The Australians, frozen at the shore, were gaping up at me as if I was mad.

Perhaps I was but there, half-way up the beach, also gaping, thrashed a large silver bug-eyed fish. My Flat Head had landed.

I spent the next hour belting up the beach pulling legions of bewildered fish out of the pacific. A small crowd gathered to applaud my technique and I was the toast of the 'barbie' that very evening.

And if you think this is just a tall fishing tale, go on down to Great Keppel Island and try it out for yourself.

It really works.