So there was this fish, his name was Callisto. He came into my life at the very beginning of sophomore year when I bought him at the slightly sketchy pet shop down the road. He wasn't the biggest or most elaborate, but I chose him because I liked his color and his attitude. Oh, did that fish have an attitude. Together we weathered heat waves, fin rot, traveling over thousands of miles, a new tank, months of separation, reunion, travel, separation, travel, fun times, sad time. They say that bettas are the only fish (with the possible exception of chiclids) that can recognize their owners, and I believe it. My dad and I could even make Callisto dance. No matter what was wrong or how much trouble he'd been through, he was always hungry, up until the last couple of weeks of his life. He was old and a little sick already, but then his swim bladder got ruptured and he couldn't regulate his buoyancy. I had to put him in a shallow bowl so he could reach his food. Then he couldn't even swim up that far and I had to bring his food down to him on the end of a probe. He still tried to swim to me if I came around, and he seemed to just like it if I put my hand on the side of the bowl where he was lying. Maybe it was the heat that my hand brought to the water. Then a couple of days ago he got dropsy. It's the most fatal betta disease that there is, and there is no known cure. Some people speculate that it is somehow related to kidney failure. A fish with dropsy has a couple of days at most.

I had to leave to go on my geology field trip. I felt a little helpless... but I can imagine what my professor would have said if I had asked him if I could sit out on the field trip so that I could spend more time with my fish.

Anyway, when I came back from my field trip, he was dead. I could use a million euphemisms, but they all come back to the same thing. It was just his body that was dead, anyway. It was clear that the entity that was Callisto was not there anymore. It seemed to linger just a little bit, though, until today, when we buried him in the soft ground outside of my dorm from sophomore year. We decided that that was where he lived his happiest days. Lisa, Ranor, Kristina, Joanna and Akla came too. It meant a lot to me that they came, even though sundays are busy days for everyone. And the really nice thing was that people wanted to come not only to support me when I was sad, but also because they liked Callisto himself. Callisto had a personality very much his own, and people just liked him. They had made memories with him the same as I had. He had become a fixture in our lives in some small and immeasurable important way. We put a little rock on top of his grave and Joanna and Kristina fashioned a little bouquet of purple flowers which looked really nice. Ranor said that the rock I'd chosen looked like a heart if you turned it a certain way, and he was right. So we turned it that way. It was sunny but crisp, my favorite kind of day. All we'd really need is some colored leaves of fall and a little bit of softball and a drive home from high school with the windows rolled down and the promise of a little snow....

I can't go to grad school in California. There are no seasons! Get me off the west coast! But the west coast is pretty great. Maybe I'll try the south-west or the east coast for grad school. Mix it up. See different parts of the country, you know.

:-(
Sorry to hear about Callisto Laurita!! He was a very lovely fish! I think you should go to grad school in Hawaii! I've always wanted to go there. :-D OH! Actually-- go to school in Arizona-- if you call me- I'll tell you why! :-* Rach
» Rachel (24.9.94.23) on 2005-10-11 04:03:18

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