Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Fish Story




It was with no small level of inebriation or entheogenic influence that I undertook

the small, benign task of feeding my fish. I employ a simple, screw on and off maneuver that distributes a fine layer of food without actually opening the container all the way. I was utilizing this technique, not accounting for heightened senses, muscle pressure error, fatigue, etc.. and dumped like half the fucking food container in the bowl. It's only a 3/4 gallon little bowl I got as a gift with the fish, so I figure that amount of food in a small space with a live fish won't keep overnight like that... it'll either die from too much salt in the water from all the food.. or it'll eat itself to death just like dumb fish do. I've left out important details.. the fish is a male betta I got from a friend for Christmas. I named him Floyd. The food is tetra bettamin I think. It's a bright almost fuschia color with white chunks peppering the surface. Upon consulting the container, I discovered the white chunks were tiny, brine shrimp.

I used a spoon to get as much food out as possible, but it was all falling to the bottom at that point and I was definitely going to have to clean it now.

Floyd's tiny brain was probably HAPPY-HUNGRY-TERRIFIED in that order before and after I cleaned it out.

I transferred Floyd to another container, and cranked on my kitchen's hot water, blasting the bowl to clean it out.

It takes awhile to heat up in this building, but when it gets there, it's hotter than hell and scalds at the touch. The water churns and when I turn the faucet off, the bowl looks like some gnarly snowglobe filled with bright red gobbets of flesh and chunks of bone flying around. Floyd was sitting in the transitional bowl on the kitchen counter right by the sink. (My kitchen is almost prison small.) The pressure and sound from the sink must have been deafening as he is ultra sensitive to even the slightest noises and gestures. Being in the state I was, senses heightened and slightly alien feeling myself, I didn't arrive at this thought until after a few minutes of sustained sink usage, which must have had all the subtlety of two planes crashing into two giant buildings on poor Floyd. I only thought of it because the sound was deafening to me at the time.

I moved him and returned to the bowl I was cleaning. The aforementioned snow gore-globe effect was still in motion and I could make out details on the white, little brine shrimp. I could see their limbs, suspended and somewhat outspread in the water, waving in macro representation of faux life with bright, red bits circling with, but slightly faster than them like tiny, crunchberry will o' the wisps.

There were thousands in there. I kept rinsing and emptying enough brine shrimp to fight a damned decent world war, if they chose to.. which would make me one lucky spectator. I could picture them, perfect little zombie killing machines, all the same size and color.. uniform, like organic stormtroopers with feathery, waving appendages, brandishing macro rifles.

It dawned on me halfway thru this rinsing that all my dishes are now and will be tomorrow encrusted with pet-grade seafood base and enough brine shrimp to fix an undead shrimp election. I'm too fucked at present to care though. I feel good.

The fish is fine by the way, that fucker has to have the PTSD of Rambo at this point, but he never lets it affect his appetite.

2 comments:

ArmoredFoe said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ArmoredFoe said...

Hmm pretty interesting man, I thought about getting a beta myself at one time, but ended up never doing it - That thing does have almost like little feathers.

I totally jacked that last post. Sorry man, reason for deletion.