Good-bye Fat Fish

The Fat One was never one of our favorites. I bought him to add a little color to the fish bowls. He was a different breed - literally. Fred didn't like him because he was a bully, which bothered me as well. He ate as much as he could, often to the detriment of the other fish in the bowl. See my post about Fred's Favorite Fish.

He'd been spending a lot of time down by the rocks, which doesn't seem to be a good sign. Then on Saturday, Fred was feeding the fish and he said, "Oh. Look." Two words which are also not a good sign when he's standing there. The fat one was on his side, not even taking shallow, sporadic breaths, like some dying fish do. The protocol is to wait for them to rise to the top, like they always do. He rose later in the day and I scooped him out.

He'd been looking a little ragged lately, so I don't think it was anything we were doing or not doing. He just expired. It was his fins. It's never good when the fins start looking a little frayed around the edges. He had lovely fins. You can't see it in the picture, but they were nice. They were large and they flowed very nicely. And he had a waddle, like a truly fat person has. I'd love to say I'll miss him, like I do the others. But it's more like when a bully leaves the office - or you move out of the office of the bully. (You know who you are, fat bullying fish in my life.) You just think, That's one problem I don't have to deal with anymore isn't it? He had a good long life. I think he was in our bowls for almost two years.

So we gave him the sailor's burial. (read: I flushed him.) I prefer burying beloved...well, they're not exactly pets...animals that live in our house for a while, but we were in a hurry and I thought it was sort of a poetic end to what Fred threatened so often to do to him. Fred would like to state for the record that he is not happy that the fish is dead, but he's not sad either.

And then there were four.