My Wife Killed My Fish

His name was Feriale. She bought the animal for me as a Christmas present. It was a Terrabetta, aqua blue. We called it Feriale because he entered our home on a ferial day.

What a beautiful animal it was. I so much looked forward to feeding the thing twice a day. Four pellets only, twice a day. After a month or so the little animal would perk up when I approached the flower bowl he was incarcerated in. He knew it was meal time. He would peek out from behind some green leaves that my wife plotted in his aquarium and just look at me. He had big bulging eyes.

I used to love watching the animal fan his upper torso fins. Arms, they were, I was told. And, of course, he had a tail, a beautiful feathery appendage that propelled him around the fish bowl. I would watch him for hours going up and down the aquarium and occasionally glaring at me through the glass. My recliner was right across from the fish bowl and Feriale could see me from the bowl. Hours? I am exaggerating.  I’d watch him for a few minutes and go back to my book. Then I’d check him out again.

He seemed really happy. I told my wife that the poor animal needed another fish, a female. She said “No. Terrabettas are TERRAtorial. They will kill any competition. They are jealous and hoarding and predatory. Feriale did not look so vicious to me. Then, again, he was an animal, a fish, but fish are animals.

My wife would clean the animal’s bowl every week or so. But last week, she threw the poor thing into a temporary bowl with tap water that, now we know, was too cold. Feriale did a nose dive. My wife tapped the glass. I could hear her say “Wake up Feriale, wake up!” No response.  I know for a fact that this animal, when alive, could hear me from the water. When I would talk to him he would come to the wall, slide his head against the glass, and stare at me with eyes that were kind of eeire looking.

I took the bowl in my hands and asked the fish to please wake up. It was bizarre. I never saw a fish die except while fishing in a boat and unhooking the squirming prey that were fare for the skillet.  There he was, however, floating nose down. Strange way to pass on, I thought. I mean nose down like that in the cold water. But that is how my fish died, nose down. My wife threw the carcass off the porch into the snow.

It has been two weeks now.