First published in the Tri Town Transcript, Mar 3, 2016
By Esther C. Baird
It’s been a wild few months in our youngest daughter’s fish tank, and I knew you, Regular Readers, would want to be updated on this important microcosm here in our Tri-Town.
Last year, Lemon, who you may recall was my daughter’s first fish, went to that great fish tank in the sky (via the porcelain road). Lemon was an elegant betta and allowed us to call her a girl even though she was a boy.
She was replaced with Midnight. An aptly named, dark blue, betta, who was shy and not terribly smart about the filter. But Midnight did give our girls reason to sing One Direction’s, “Midnight Memories,” whenever we wanted to rock out. Ok, fine, I was more likely to break into the boy band anthem, since feeding my daughter’s fish, in my daughter’s room, is obviously my job.
But here’s where things get thorny. Lemon had departed, and Midnight had come, all the while Zippy, our orangish yellow, glo-fish, was thriving. Zippy came shortly after Lemon two and a half years ago, and had grown large and mean. Plus he glowed, which was supposed to be cool but was actually just creepy.
Feeding time in the Casa Baird fish tank was like watching Shark Week. Betta fish are supposed to be aggressive, they’re fighting fish after all, but Midnight cowered under Zippy’s reign of terror. He hid behind plants and up in corners and behind the filter as Zippy roamed the waters and took first dibs on all the food.
And then we went on vacation. We fed the fish before we went like always. And when we returned, our daughter immediately sprinted up to her room to see if her fish, whom she loves so much yet is incapable of feeding, were still alive.
Midnight was missing.
We checked behind the filter. We looked under the plants. We even looked on the floor. It was doubtful that Midnight flung himself out, but, desperation breeds possible moments of brilliance, even in fish. Meanwhile Zippy zipped about as if his tank partner hadn’t vanished into the night. Into the midnight.
A week or so went by and the tank was getting scummy. Cue Mommy the Fish Tank Cleaner.
Yes, yes, my daughter could help, but there was something about an eight year old and five gallons of water, on a second floor, that filled me with existential dread.
I emptied the fish tank and began scrubbing the walls and plastic neon plants. That’s when I found it, balanced among the hot pink spikes of an underwater shrubbery, a fully intact fish skeleton.
I’d found Midnight. Rather, quite obviously, Zippy had found Midnight, every single bit of him.
My daughter and I watched Zippy in the newly clean water with morbid fascination. Was it possible that the process meant to make Zippy glow, accidentally made him a piranha?
“Our next betta has to be bigger and braver,” She declared.
I appreciated her emotional fortitude which allowed her to move quickly past the trauma. Her fish had been eaten to the bone, but she remembered our family rule with respect to the tank: fish die. We didn’t lose sleep over it. (Ok, I secretly lost a small amount of sleep reliving the moment I picked up the teeny, tiny skeleton and realized we had a fish murderer in our midst.)
The next day we brought home a fierce and fiery red betta named, Dragon.
Dragon has proved resilient, mostly because Dragon has lived. Dragon has survived for six months outlasting his predecessor, and his predecessor’s gory fate. He’s ultimately proved victorious against the glowing threat that lurked nearby. Yesterday Zippy finally gave up his violent little glowing ghost. We found him floating upside down (but intact). Dragon swished by as if to say, “I could have eaten him, but chose not to.”
Farewell Zippy, you exceptionally cold blooded, glo-fish. The tank is now in Pax Pisces.
“Until,” my daughter said brightly while Zippy flushed away to aquatic heaven, “we can buy a new fish!”
Which is true enough, only maybe this time we will skip the kind that glow.