FEATURE
My two pet goldfish died on the same day. It was last winter, and we had fish for dinner that night. We chewed small bites of salmon in silence. The golden one had gone first. Little white bumps had been cropping up on his smooth scales like snowdrifts for a while. A few hours later, the orange one went as well, and one little fish body turned into two, floating together in fish heaven at the top of the tank. Fish heaven was only a few inches away from fish life. I wasn’t sure where fish hell was. After the golden one died, I left him in the tank so the orange one could say his goodbyes and his prayers, if he wanted. I wondered if he missed him. They must have known each other well. He didn’t go near the golden fish floating up top, though. He lingered alone at the bottom of the tank instead. I didn’t want to flush them. Their deaths had been slow and gentle, and the toilet would move them too fast, faster than they’d ever moved in life. They’d be fish out of water, rushing through the pipes, and end up in a sewer somewhere. Little fish in a big pond—a pond bigger than their tank, at least. The orange one would deliver the eulogy for the golden one, I figured, but I’d have to deliver the eulogy for the orange one. Cause of death: drowning, I might say. Would that go in a eulogy or an obituary? He lived a long, happy life before dying peacefully in his tank. He watched his friend die, but there are other fish in the sea. Or not in the sea, because some never make it there. Maybe real fish heaven was the ocean. Before the orange one died, I tried to bring the ocean to both of them. I stood on my tiptoes with my face over the tank and opened my eyes wide, waiting for them to water. I wondered if the orange fish had cried. If a fish could cry, would it cry dry tears? Mine weren’t. My tears landed on my lips instead of the water, and I tasted the sea. I sprinkled a teaspoon of salt into the water instead. Do-it-yourself fish heaven. The crystals fluttered down like little snowflakes. The orange fish swam up to one of the grains of salt. Food, he must have thought. He opened his mouth wide and recoiled, and he swam back down to the bottom of the tank. The golden one floated on, though, and eventually, the orange one joined him. After dinner, we took them from the water in a net and brought them outside to the backyard. The snow was wet and heavy. We dug a hole in the icy ground for the two of them and marked it with a wooden board. One fish, two fish, dead fish, through fish. We buried them in the snow side by side. Frozen fish sticks. The birds would eat them by spring.
By Isabelle Chirls
FISH STICKS 26 TUFTSOBSERVER OBSERVERNOVEMBER OCTOBER 26 TUFTS 25,14, 20192019
DESIGN BY SOFIA PRETELL, ART BY JADY ZHANG