Fishy Business

Every once in a while they approach the surface, and open their mouths, round, and open and close it. As if they were breathing. Perhaps even they get tired of water.

What do they do? I wonder. Perhaps animals—or fishes—have a different way in which to measure time, or something. Maybe they live in a second—what we live in a day. That would explain the endless days--lives--that they live, just swimming around.

Their tales wiggle, and they really don’t stop. Sometimes they stand still, but soon enough they realize that with the bright colour in their scales, they really can’t camouflage. From what, though? Are they scared?

I wonder if they dream. If they have nightmares, if they even sleep. Personally I’m too lazy to wake up during the night, and just glance, and see whether they’re still awake. I’m really not in the mood to try it. Once I try to set the camera, and record them, but if the batteries were not done, it was too dark, or it just got wet.

I’ve never been as close to one of them, as to see whether they have ears or not. But I turn on the music, and one of them dances a bit. Maybe she—she—just got altered, but the nerves were really coordinate with the music. Sometimes, she even positions herself vertically, and imagines she has a dance partner, as if there were any other fish as willing to dance as her. It’s like an impossible dream, those that we all have.

The other fish, he’s sort of fishy. Though I’ve never had the chance to observe and study the whole species, he’s a bit awkward. It has happen more than once, that I’m doing my homework or something, and then he’s floating there, still, and his eyes are not moving, nor his tail. I get a bit nervous and rub my hand against the aquarium. After some seconds he moves again. I sigh of relieve. Perhaps he is sort of intelligent. Perhaps he enjoys fooling me and scaring me to death.

I don’t love them that much, though. They are sort of Plan B after dog. Our puppy was way too hyper and so we had to return it. Then, I got fish because they’re calm. They’re too calm. Whenever you feel lonely, you glance at the fish, and you just feel worse. But I don’t want them to die. So I feed them every morning, and they eat their food—if food’s what you call it—slowly, as if they were never too hungry.

They’re never too anything, now that I think about it. They have no worries. They don’t get dirty, among water that I clean so constantly. They can do whatever they want, whatever’s inside the aquarium. I’ve never expect them to jump or anything. I really don’t know about their ages, but they’re kind of old. All modest, and slow. And I hope that for the day they die, it will be because of oldness, rather than malnutrition or contamination or something.