When we went out of town for Christmas, we enlisted our good friends Paul and Melissa to feed our dear Baraka fish while we were gone. We made sure to tell them that Baraka hasn't been doing too good the past little while, so if he died when we were gone, they shouldn't worry. We also warned them that Baraka usually tilted a bit and can LOOK dead, but usually would start to swim again. Unless he's belly-up, we told our fish-sitters, assume he's still alive.
Well, we got a few text messages regarding our poor little swimmer saying that he wasn't belly-up but had been in the same position for a day or two.
When we got home on Sunday, our apartment reeked with the mixed smell of fish and the garbage we forgot to take out before we left. In our bedroom, Baraka was at the bottom of his tank (where he had reportably been since the Thursday before). His vibrant red had turned a pale pink, and his eyes were a dull gray/white. His body was puffy and his fins were flared.
He was indeed very, very dead.
I was more disturbed by his dead body than I thought I would have been. I made Scott bury/flush him. But because Baraka didn't float to the top, this proved difficult and resulted in Scott having to... FLICK the fish from his tank to the toilet, which made our dead fish fly through about three feet of air before he splashed into his grave.
We flushed quickly.
We didn't even pray.
I feel like a horrible fish owner.
Have I ever told you the story about Ryan?
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