Several thousand goldfish, mostly dead by now
by Divya Maniar
Every Thursday afternoon, I bought a bag of goldfish for sixty cents. I carried it with me on the ride. I stopped by the reservoir, pulled off the rubber band that sealed the bag shut, and I poured the fish into the open water. They swam, disorientated, near to the surface, before disappearing into the deep green. Then I went home.
This all began when my mother refused to get me a dog.
We lived in a small Singapore apartment with no space for large animals. Certainly, for a dog which would have preferred to bound around an open field, being stuck in the shoebox I called home would have been a cruelty. I relented, then she relented, but only partway.
She took me to the pet store. I was tempted by terrapins clumsily climbing over one another, fighting for land-space on a small rock, struggling against the sides of the bright red bucket they lived in. I wanted to buy them if only to give them room to breathe, a bigger bucket to swim in, enough stones so they wouldn’t have to brawl.
There was a wall of what the shopkeeper called “fighting fish,” warning us with a toothless grin that these were notorious for jumping out of the tank, and flopping their way around the house until their gills strained for water and they died. They were twenty dollars each, and beautiful. They had dark opalescent bodies, and black tails which moved in the water like flags flying, proud and dignified. I pointed at one and said I wanted it. “Too expensive,” said my mother, turning to the shopkeeper. “Cheaper?”
He led us out to the back of the store, where five blue vats were lined against the wall. “60 cent per bag. Goldfish.” My mother reached in and pulled out a bag the size of a purse. In it swam inch-long goldfish, darting back and forth between their transparent plastic walls. They seemed to live in this perpetual loop, a discontent that replenished itself like the big, well-filtered fish-tank out front, which carried monster Arowanas. Bulging eyes followed us wherever we went.
Innocently, I asked, “Why are they so cheap?”
My mother, dropping coins into the shopkeeper’s wrinkled hand, said: “They’re just food for the big fish.”
On the drive home, I held the bag so close to my chest that it almost burst.
My mother said that if I could them alive for two weeks, I would get a terrapin. Excitedly, I set off to find little rocks for my new aquarium. I named the fish but quickly became unable to tell them apart.
I poured the bag, water and all, into the tank, realizing belatedly that one of the fish had already died. No matter, I thought. I dug a hole behind my favorite tree near to the apartment complex’s car-park, and laid it to rest.
When I returned, another had passed away.
I did not know how to sustain fish, clearly, and realized soon enough that I did not even have food for them, or a way to cleanly replace the water in the tank. The next day, I went back to the store on my own to buy fish food, and a small water filter.
I had twelve remaining, and though I treated them with every dignity, they all went within the week. I took pride nonetheless that they died a more dignified death than the grizzly one the shopkeeper had in mind for them.
Still, failing to keep them around meant ultimately that I never did work my way up to terrapin ownership. My mother, being a woman of her word, told me to stop fawning over animals, and that I was bad at taking care of them in any case.
She was right, but that did not stop me from thinking about the goldfish. Worse than my longing, though, was my fear.
I had nightmares about Arowanas, remembering in my sleep their long bodies, scales glinting in maleficent light; I dreamed of my mother pouring my own fishes, still alive, into the big tank at the storefront; I dreamed of the goldfish being devoured, snapped up between the sharp, pointy jaws.
When we went to the reservoir for a picnic later that week, I watched a family release something into the water. It was a goldfish, but it was large. It had been fattened through years of store-bought fish food, and clean aquarium water. It swam away, while two siblings cried.
I wondered if there were Arowanas in the dark deep water too, waiting; I wondered if setting the fishes free was just another way to feed them to something bigger. Still, I thought, the goldfish would have more space to hide. They stood a better chance.
That Thursday, I marched to the pet store, still in my school uniform, and demanded to see the goldfish. I paid the shopkeeper the sixty cents I usually reserved for my peach tea, and picked up the bag.
I took the bus to the reservoir, just four stops from my home. I let the fish go, and watched them swim away.
⦿
It has been a while since. Though I knew, at some level, that what I kept doing was bad for the environment, I could not help myself.
Hundreds of fish later, I can only now wonder how many of the freed captives still dart around these waters. I wonder if any of them have grown into giants. I throw some fish food into the reservoir, and see ripples form on the surface. Maybe they remember me.
I imagine an army of released fish gathering close to my feet. I throw more food in, and more, and more, searching in vain for a glimpse of those familiar thrashing tails, and for the light trapped in small orange-gold scales.
Divya Maniar is a writer from Singapore. She studied Comparative Literature and Philosophy at Brown. Her work can be found in Joyland, Heavy Feather Review, Hobart, and elsewhere. She can be found on Twitter @divyalymaniar.
