Ol' Blue

We got a new fish today.

The kids are pretty excited. 

We got a goldfish.

I asked Parker what to name him...

he thinks...

and thinks...

and says, 

"Fish, Gold Fish!"

Like a secret agent or something?

As excited as I am about our new coppery friend, 

I have to tell you that this story is not all happy.

The new fish was, as you may imagine, the result of losing an old fish.

Ol' Blue.

We really never named him. 

I just picked that name right now.

For dramatic emphasis in this post.

We had a beautiful blue Betta.

We've had him a couple years now in a cute little bowl

on the bookcase.

I'm not emotionally attached to things like fish.

But it's more the manner of his departure that is rather unfortunate.

11:35 pm, Saturday night.

Parker and Colette are sleeping.

Richard is running some code 

that pertains to something for work on the computer.

classified.

I've already said too much.

So, I being bored, decide to clean the bowl of our beautiful fish.

I start the lukewarm water as I always do.

I run the water at a slow stream directly into the bowl to circulate.

I look away, and look back to see that the fish in no longer in the bowl.

He is flapping away in the sink.

I go to get him...

with what?

my hands?

I hesitate.

The running water consumes the poor helpless creature.

He swirls into the depths of a fate worse than

Davy Jones' locker...

the sewer.

Is he dead or alive?

I cannot tell. 

But he has left us. 

Without any hope of returning.

I have to admit that I pushed back a few tears as those 

feathery blue fins slipped away into the drain.

It was a life,

and now it was lost. 

Richard pulled a book out of the bookshelf and said, 

"It's funny this should happen because I just read something about this."

Joseph Smith recounting an experience with the brethren at Zion's camp:

"In pitching my tent we found three prairie rattlesnakes, which the brethren were about to kill, but I said, 'Let them alone--don't hurt them! How will the serpent ever lose its venom, while the servants of God possess the same disposition, and continue to make war upon it? Men must become harmless before the brute creation, and when men lose their vicious dispositions and cease to destroy the animal race, the lion and the lamb can dwell together and the sucking child can play with the serpent in safety.'" 

May 26, 1834

Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith

"Kindness to Animals Required of Man"

Page 71

So naturally I feel loads better.
Delaying the Millennium, one dead fish at a time.
{And let's not even mention the spiders and flies.}