After three months of heroic and devoted service, I am no longer foster mom to a fish.
We both survived.
“Mirliton,” as I called him in my earlier report, swam around all day in his heated tank, dreaming of social justice.
My only duty was to feed him some fishy-smelling pellets. He’d grab them, then flutter back to his contemplative life. He had serenity in his soul.
And then the storm hit. On Mardi Gras Day. Rain, wind, falling trees – and freezing in the dark. The water in Mirliton’s tank grew cold. He turned white and hid under his parsley.
My neighbor, “Rhett,” opined that the fish was dead.
Eventually, bravely, we forced our freezing hands into a prayerful position and tiptoed into the fish room.
And Mirliton was fine. If there was brain damage, it didn’t show. When the power and heat came back, he patrolled his tank as conscientiously as ever.
Today his regular human fetched him home. Rhett now calls himself “the resurrectionist.” My cat claims she never thought of sushi.
We all have our fish stories.
