Fish in a bowl

At home, there is a goldfish who lives in a fish bowl.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He kind of looks like this one, but this is not him. The one at home is fatter and the brim of his bowl is in a wave like pattern. He also looks more stuck up.

He’s not my goldfish. He is the replacement for my goldfish (and probably the 55th generation of goldfish to live in that bowl). My goldfish was just a koochi fry when I brought him home. Kok Onn gave him to me in a plastic bag and I had to talk soothingly to him in the car, or else he would have pengsaned on the bumpy ride. When I got home I put him into The Bowl and yelled into the water, “HELLO FISH FISH!”. He seemed to like the name & stopped swimming around whenever I called “HELLO FISH FISH!”

Fish Fish grew up into a bigger round ball of ….fish. One day a friend brought me a jungle fighting fish he had caught while on a camping trip. I had no other bowl, so I roomed him with Fish Fish. A week later he died. Feisty one, that Fish Fish!

Clearly he had some problems relating to society. But, how do you counsel a goldfish, right? Sensing that he was lonely in that big glass bowl, I decided to get him some plants to play with. So I got some mini lily-like plants from Yew Meng and floated them in Fish Fish’s bowl. The next day, when I got home I noticed that the bowl was empty and dried out, and my round fish ball was missing. Pops told me he’d suffocated from all the plants in his bowl. Poor fish! The very next day, he was replaced by the same stuck up fish swimming in that bowl today.

Sometimes I think about Fish Fish in the bowl. I wonder how he could be so contented swimming round and round and round the bowl every single day of his life. There would be the occasional deviation from his routine, of course. Like when the Fatty The Cat dips her paws into his water, or when someone shouts into his bowl.

Pops says fish forget easily. Maybe that’s a good life. A short life, with very few and rare stressful events. And being able to forget. No baggage. Just swim, swim, swim all day with only God as a friend.