Homer

I had a little fish for awhile and his name was Homer. I got him and 2 other fish one intensely cold Sunday in January 4 years ago, the kind of cold day up north here when the high for the day is 5F. The pet store has a buy one-get-another-of-the-same-kind-free deal on Sundays, and Homer and his sister Joy are some kind of Ryukin goldfish, bred to have shortened bodies and fat bellies. It is all for the look, this breeding, and it causes problems for the fish themselves because the fat belly compacts the internal organs--particularly the swim bladder, the reason fish are buoyant at all--too tightly.

I got a third fish that day too, because it was all alone in its tank and was very pretty. It is a pearl scale Sarassa and I call her Pearl. She is a more aggressive fish that the other two. Her solitary state appealed to my heart that day as I was motiviated by extreme self-pity. The Vampyr had just left, and even though it was the right thing, I still felt bereft and alone and lost and loser-ish (another relationship failure!), and also very sorry for myself. Self-pity is a hairy monster that lives and breeds in my mother's side of the family. It is an odious emotion that I am working very hard to eradicate in myself. And at that time, I was thick in the throes of it. So I decided to go find some little fish that no one wanted after the holiday shopping. The little unwanted leftovers of the market economy!

Homer was deformed, that's why no one wanted him. His body was so compacted, he could not maintain himself in a horizontal position and his nose was always diving into the gravel. He was unstable in general, as if his internal gyroscope was all out of whack. He would float helplessly upside down and bob all around the tank. And originally his name was not Homer--it was Hope, because I honestly hoped he would not die. And Pearl's original name was Peace, until it became clear she was anything but peaceful.

As time went on, it became more and more clear that little Homer's disabilty was a liability in the world of that tank. Pearl was uneasy with anything that seemed not normal, and would push at him and nudge him and drive him away from the food. Homer was stressed out, and began to have infections--his tail fin began to rot, and he still bobbed all over, and one day I got home from work to discover him all bleeding. The other fish had been pecking and attacking him--as if to eat him. Because they would eat him--goldfish are scavengers and cannibals. Meat is meat to them.

I quickly got a large coffee mug and scooped little Homer out of the tank. I found a clean 5 gallon plastic bucket in the bathroom closet, filled it half way with water, and put little Homer, mug and all, into it. Homer stayed inside the shelter of his mug. I also put some tea tree oil in the water to help him begin to heal. Then I rushed off to the pet store to buy him a proper tank--it would take at least 24 hours for that tank to be ready for him, and he was fine in the bucket, in his mug, until then.

And so Homer lived with his mug shelter in a 5 gallon tank on the bathroom counter. I talked to him all the time, told him how wonderful and strong he was. His tail fin had rotted almost completely off, but the tea tree medication I used is phenomenal, and with time, his fin grew completely back. But then new health woes arose for little Homer. Suddenly his swim bladder would not contract, and he was stuck floating at the surface of the water. It was difficult to feed him then, as I had been using sinking pellets, but I found some flakes of fish food, and cut a sharp edge on a plastic cord, and would skewer the flakes onto that and hold it near Homer until he got the idea. And he did get the idea, and so after that, he and I shared a 20 minute feeding ritual twice a day as I would try to keep the tissue thin flakes on the cord and he would try to gobble them with some accuracy. I also did this with thawed out peas.

I have to say here that Homer was always a very cheerful and happy little fish. He knew me, and would wiggle around when I came to his tank. Despite his limitations, he never despaired and was always eager to eat. I started singing to him too, his own little song, roughly based on a Christmas anthem our choir had sung at our annual concert. I would sing: "Look at that fish shine in the night/Look at that fish shine in the night/Look at that fish shine in the night/Showin' the way to Bethlehem...."

He loved it. He always responded by swimming lopsided circles.

One day I came in to feed him and his swim bladder had contracted, and he was now lying on the bottom of the tank. So at least he could eat the sinking pellets again, but I missed our daily meal together! Some days I wasn't sure if he was alive or not and I would stand there looking at him and would then see his eye twitch in my direction. Pretty much every time I went into the bathroom I expected him to be dead, and was immensely reassured by that little eye twitch. He was still happy and hopeful, still managed to move around despite being trapped on the bottom in the gravel. He was vigorous despite his deformity, and he taught me a lot about remaining cheerful despite circumstances that are less than ideal. He was always happy and friendly, and always eager to eat.

Eventually tumors began to grow on his head. And one morning, about a week after my mother's current husband had died, in November 2 years ago, little Homer lay very, very still in his tank, and his little eye did not twitch in my direction, and he was gone. I knew in my heart that he was now swimming freely and gracefully and happily someplace else. He had lived 2 years despite all his health woes.

(Incidentally, his 'sister' Joy has since had her swim bladder fail, and she now lives in Homer's old tank, but I brought it out here and it sits amidst the plants and the sunshine on the dining room table. She has been that way for over a year now, and while she does not have Homer's sparkling personality, she is surviving quite nicely.)

I buried him under my heirloom apple tree ( the variety is called Sops of Wine) in a hole that immediately filled with water because we had had a lot of rain and the ground water was high in that spot. I loved little Homer, he taught me so much, his tiny shining self. Look at that fish shine in the night!