Brackish Adventures, Part Twelve!
This side of Christmas break, I actually broke down and bought some aquatic friends, more aptly titled "Tester Fish." I decided that if I could keep a few fish alive until the time I got paid next, I would feel confident enough in my water conditions to look into some Actual Beasts. Enter Carlos the Black Molly and Skinner the Plecostomus; they were cheap and I carried them home one below-freezing night cradled inside the folds of my jacket, having no resource better than body heat to keep their water temperature stabilized for the walk. "Just don't die, okay?" I would plead into my collar, catching an occasional worried glance from some other pedestrian who would have just then noticed the strange bulge I was cradling against my stomach.
In a compelling display of sturdiness, both fish survived the jostling and semi-exposure to arrive in my long-dormant tank. I watched with unexpected glee as they made themselves at home, Carlos wiggling around, intermittantly tugging algae off the rootwood and begging me for a second dinner, whilst Skinner taste-tested sections of wall and twigged out whenever his tankmate swam too close. I didn't count on liking the two so much as I did; understanding that there were plenty of water chemistry anomolies that could potentially kill them off (never mind the future badass brackish carnivores), I figured I wouldn't let myself get too attached: but so much for that. It's been months since I've had fish; I watched them for five minutes and was in love, cheap little things though they are.
They did admirably for the first few days: no deaths, no strange habits or worrisome lethargies, healthy appetites -- all good signs. I remembered the joys of having little vertebrates around to watch (all those snot-nosed claims fish nerds will make about aquariums being more absorbing than TV are, oddly enough, true.) So when, already in a somewhat saddened state about an entirely unrelated matter, I discovered last night that Carlos had disappeared, it was unexpectedly difficult to handle.
I function rationally in only ideal conditions. That night was in no such spectrum. I pulled off the hood of the tank and flashlight-searched the same two square foot plot of gravel and plastic plants for a half hour, finding nothing -- no body, no traces, alive or otherwise.
And lo, the thoughts that ran through my head. I remember these all made sense at the time.
A) He jumped ship.
~A) No body.
B) Skinner ate him.
~B) Skinner is the same size as Carlos. And herbivorous.
C) String Theory is true, and all the atoms of his body simultaneously popped out of existence.
~C) String Theory is the intellectual equivalent of Quantum Feng Shui.
D) It's an omen. God doesn't exist.
~D) If God doesn't exist, it's unlikely that omens would.
E) ...fuck.
In the end, I resigned to replacing the hood and going to bed, hoping he would reappear in the morning. He did not, and only then did I finally plunge in the final graft of realization that he was indeed gone. I mulled over the now-neccessary water changes and waiting periods before I could trust the tank setup to more complicated fish, berating myself with the thought that I can't even keep a molly alive in this thing and trying not to think too much about the way he would get excited and wiggle up whenever I sat down at my desk (yes, he was begging for food, but it was still endearing.)
Uncertainty about something is worse than a fully-recognized bad outcome. I kept hoping I would find a body, anything at all, for finality's sake or even just little more information about probable cause (looking for bacterial infections, bite marks, etc.) -- but to have nothing at all, nothing but an absence, is a strange and sharp feeling. That kind of loss is unnerving; you don't have the normal markers for continuance, no way to tell what happens now, which step is the one that needs to be taken next. Apathy is the only way to get along with the thought.
But what of this mean game of mine, to set up the trick and not pull the curtain away? Just as unexpectedly as he had gone, Carlos reappeared this afternoon, covered in Ich spots (damn PetSmart) and doing his hungry dance with surprising vigor. College has made me weird, maybe, but I don't know how long it has been since I was that happy to see someone. I gave him probably tripled flake rations and babbled unintelligible praises as I Googled parasite remedies, wondering how iTunes could have possibly known to play Sons and Daughters at that precise, oh-so-apt moment.
This seems to be a theme to me of late. I seem to have in general lost connection with humanity via mere social mechanics, but in that void I find increased attachment to things that seem to have the innocent dust of human characteristics, whether it be fish, with a mental life to rival that of pillow stuffing, or anonymous ballpoint napkin graffities, or the beat-up books I find in a graying downtown snow drifts. It brings home, more than anything else, a line that continually sticks out to me in my fiction wanderings -- the conundrum of one who loves mankind obsessively, but cannot love man. But I am not yet a solipsist; I look forward with a good deal of hope to the day when humans, like my little black fish, decide to reemerge for me -- parasites and all. I do miss them.
In a compelling display of sturdiness, both fish survived the jostling and semi-exposure to arrive in my long-dormant tank. I watched with unexpected glee as they made themselves at home, Carlos wiggling around, intermittantly tugging algae off the rootwood and begging me for a second dinner, whilst Skinner taste-tested sections of wall and twigged out whenever his tankmate swam too close. I didn't count on liking the two so much as I did; understanding that there were plenty of water chemistry anomolies that could potentially kill them off (never mind the future badass brackish carnivores), I figured I wouldn't let myself get too attached: but so much for that. It's been months since I've had fish; I watched them for five minutes and was in love, cheap little things though they are.
They did admirably for the first few days: no deaths, no strange habits or worrisome lethargies, healthy appetites -- all good signs. I remembered the joys of having little vertebrates around to watch (all those snot-nosed claims fish nerds will make about aquariums being more absorbing than TV are, oddly enough, true.) So when, already in a somewhat saddened state about an entirely unrelated matter, I discovered last night that Carlos had disappeared, it was unexpectedly difficult to handle.
I function rationally in only ideal conditions. That night was in no such spectrum. I pulled off the hood of the tank and flashlight-searched the same two square foot plot of gravel and plastic plants for a half hour, finding nothing -- no body, no traces, alive or otherwise.
And lo, the thoughts that ran through my head. I remember these all made sense at the time.
A) He jumped ship.
~A) No body.
B) Skinner ate him.
~B) Skinner is the same size as Carlos. And herbivorous.
C) String Theory is true, and all the atoms of his body simultaneously popped out of existence.
~C) String Theory is the intellectual equivalent of Quantum Feng Shui.
D) It's an omen. God doesn't exist.
~D) If God doesn't exist, it's unlikely that omens would.
E) ...fuck.
In the end, I resigned to replacing the hood and going to bed, hoping he would reappear in the morning. He did not, and only then did I finally plunge in the final graft of realization that he was indeed gone. I mulled over the now-neccessary water changes and waiting periods before I could trust the tank setup to more complicated fish, berating myself with the thought that I can't even keep a molly alive in this thing and trying not to think too much about the way he would get excited and wiggle up whenever I sat down at my desk (yes, he was begging for food, but it was still endearing.)
Uncertainty about something is worse than a fully-recognized bad outcome. I kept hoping I would find a body, anything at all, for finality's sake or even just little more information about probable cause (looking for bacterial infections, bite marks, etc.) -- but to have nothing at all, nothing but an absence, is a strange and sharp feeling. That kind of loss is unnerving; you don't have the normal markers for continuance, no way to tell what happens now, which step is the one that needs to be taken next. Apathy is the only way to get along with the thought.
But what of this mean game of mine, to set up the trick and not pull the curtain away? Just as unexpectedly as he had gone, Carlos reappeared this afternoon, covered in Ich spots (damn PetSmart) and doing his hungry dance with surprising vigor. College has made me weird, maybe, but I don't know how long it has been since I was that happy to see someone. I gave him probably tripled flake rations and babbled unintelligible praises as I Googled parasite remedies, wondering how iTunes could have possibly known to play Sons and Daughters at that precise, oh-so-apt moment.
This seems to be a theme to me of late. I seem to have in general lost connection with humanity via mere social mechanics, but in that void I find increased attachment to things that seem to have the innocent dust of human characteristics, whether it be fish, with a mental life to rival that of pillow stuffing, or anonymous ballpoint napkin graffities, or the beat-up books I find in a graying downtown snow drifts. It brings home, more than anything else, a line that continually sticks out to me in my fiction wanderings -- the conundrum of one who loves mankind obsessively, but cannot love man. But I am not yet a solipsist; I look forward with a good deal of hope to the day when humans, like my little black fish, decide to reemerge for me -- parasites and all. I do miss them.