The fish

It’s always the fish. 

One time, a time of happiness, perhaps, or hopes of a normal life together, my partner and I bought a fish, on a whim. 

We were eating in a cafeteria, and while waiting for our sisig to grace our table, I told him I’d visit the pet shop next door. 

Whereupon I laid eyes on the usual wares: fish, birds, Guinea pigs, rabbits. I remember my nephew, as always - he had wanted a rabbit in our previous home, and I was adamant to say no every time, since I would be the one to end up feeding and cleaning after it, knowing how he kept his hours. Plus I think stressed rabbits eat their young. That rabbit would have inherited all my stress and eaten its own sperm. 

I spot the betta in their individual tanks, and my eyes delight in their colors: one was pure deep red, maybe like the color of the most beautiful flower in Sir Pratchett’s ocean; several were cobalt blue. Then I saw what was eventually to become christened in my house as Sisig - a betta so variedly colored I don’t even know its base hue. It has a red and orange underbelly, light speckled blue on its dorsal area. Beautiful specimen.

We took it home after eating, with its new tank, and some other marine paraphernalia. Now I am contemplating how and to whom to give it away, in a place where I don’t know anybody, because I want to move away from this place where I don’t know anybody. I am alone at home - with my partner, with Sisig, yes, but alone. 

It’s the fish that gets to suffer our leaving home. The collateral damage to our loneliness are always creatures that hold hope for our staying home, and then we break each other’s hearts, and then we leave. 

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