My poor betta has gone to that Great Aquarium in the sky, under mysterious circumstances.
Last night was a lazy evening. After working rush week in a college bookstore and saying “You have until the twelfth class day to return this for a full refund” until I was ready to scream, I elected to spend the time lounging around and getting ready for my trip home the next day. Whenever someone’s fish-sitting, I like to make sure my fish’s water is clean as can be, so they don’t need to worry about it.
During one of the night’s King of the Hill reruns, I took the necessary supplies into the kitchen. In the kitchen sink, I poured LeBetta from his fish bowl into his fish cup, where he stays during water changes, cleaned the bowl, rinsed the plastic plant, and filled the bowl with clean water. After chlorine drops were added and allowed to circulate, I poured LeBetta, and a lot of his old water, back into his bowl. I carried him back to his table in my bedroom and fed him.
All very routine, save for two details. I normally put the stopper in the sink when switching fish back and forth, as a just-in-case measure, but this time I didn’t. The water level was much higher than normal, almost to the brim, but I decided it would be alright when some of it evaporated.
I went on with my Friday night, showering and folding laundry. Here, I must mention my roommate has two cats. I adore the both of them, from their cute kitty ears to the way they nap on the couch to way they purr during a good petting. The only thing I dislike about them is their natural and unwelcome fascination with my fish. I try to keep my door closed when I’m not in my room to pluck them off the little table where the fish bowl sits.
Around two, about to turn out the light and go to sleep, I happened to look up from Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady and notice the fish bowl looked a bit empty. I got up and peered closer. No fish. The absence of a dog from a backyard is irritating. The absence of a fish from a fishbowl is downright alarming.
The stopper-less sink flashed in my mind. Could LeBetta have slipped out and down the drain? It was all I could think of. I rushed to the kitchen. Lacking a flashlight, I grabbed a small lamp, plugged it into a kitchen outlet, thanked God my roommate wasn’t awake to see this, and endeavored to see if a small fish was lying down the drain. Drains, I hadn’t realized, are dark, wet places that can’t be examined for the glare off the water. Particularly for a small blue-black fish.
Feeling like the worst fish owner in the world and pondering an appropriate act of contrition for fish neglect, I gave it up. I went back to my room to see if, somehow, he’d been in the bowl all along, and I’d just missed him. No luck. I started looking around the table. Maybe he’d jumped out. No luck.
Under the table was a small blue-black shape, the right color but the wrong shape to be a twist of fuzz off my bathroom rugs. I knelt and found my fish lying, incredibly, several inches over and a couple feet down from his bowl.
I couldn’t stand to touch him with my bare hands. I ran and got a paper towel. (Get your hand wet and then pick him up, my dad, an experienced fisherman, told me later, too late to help.) Dreading the homestyle “burial at sea,” I touched the fish.
The damned thing twitched.
Stunned, I let him go. Recovering, I picked him up again and dropped him swiftly into his bowl. He swam, tendrils of beige carpet fiber clinging to him. I felt horrible. Had he jumped out, then jumped to the table’s edge, then over, then under the table? I couldn’t account for the cats’ whereabouts all night. I tried to be vigilant about my door, and I didn’t want to blame them for something they probably didn’t do. How long had he been out of water?
LeBetta lay on the leaves of his plastic plant, near the surface. I’d heard fish had slime coatings, to protect them, and his had surely taken a beating. If anything could be done for him, I didn’t know what it was. I made a wish he’d be okay, and went to bed.
This morning he was on the bottom of the bowl. He was two 