My fish died on New Year's Eve. As I was taking to my bed around 3am that night, I saw that while he was indeed still floating upside down, he wasn't breathing anymore. A sad way to begin the new year, that's for sure.
Dealing with a dead pet of any kind is tough. And I'm not just talking about the emotional aspects of it. I'm talking the practical parts, too. Like, what do I do with his body? Sure, most would say "Flush him!" but he was kind of a big fish, and the last thing I want to deal with is a dead fish clogging up my toilet. The other obvious choice would be tossing him in the trash. But that just seemed so needlessly callous an option.
So, I placed him in a zip-lock bag and put him in the freezer.
Now, before you start to worry that I've gone all Jeffrey Dalmer or something, calm down. I'm not going to eat him or take him out occasionally for midnight chats. I'm just thinking about perhaps giving him a burial at sea. There's something kind of wrong about burying a fish (ashes to ashes doesn't seem appropriate when you're dealing with a creature that lived in water) hence the whole tossing him into the sea idea.
The other fish is (knock on wood) doing fine, so I don't think this one died of anything contagious. So maybe he'll make a good meal for some seal or seagull or something. That would complete the cycle of life a little better than tossing him down the garbage shoot, methinks...
2 comments:
Thanks for the sympathy....yeah, eating my fish would be all kinds of wrong, not the least of which is that fact that he was 5 years old. Is any fish that is commonly eaten that old when its killed?
I actually have no idea about that...I just know it's not common practice to eat meat that has died of natural causes.
tragic and...beautiful!
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