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.
Even the original Lazarus had to die again sometime.
