Golden, Piaget, and Gauss

In the Stained Glass show we did this year, our xylophone player (Jason) had to hit a crotale and then put it into a tupperware container of water to make the pitch bend in the middle of Cathedrals, the second number. Early in the season, people joked about putting live fish into his water. The week before Dayton, Laura and Brandon actually DID put fish into his water. We all thought it was really funny and we laughed for a while, but then Brooke started to worry that the fish would die. First of all, there were three of them in that little tupperware container and they weren't getting any new oxygen in that water. She started looking around for a straw, but never found one. I started to feel really bad for the poor fish too, so I tried to find something as well. I ended up basically deconstructing one of my mechanical pencils and just blowing air through that from time to time. I'm pretty sure everyone who noticed, once again, thought that I was crazy.

This was the weekend of the Keith Urban concert, so practiced ended early, something like 3PM, so that the battery could get ready and practice and whatnot. The pit was going to go bowling with whatever instructors were free, and Brooke convinced me to take care of the fish somehow. So we went to Wal*Mart, which isn't far from the bowling alley, and got a tank with a bubbler and light and cover and bought some food, too. I think she paid for most of it but I think I chipped in for some part of it... Anyway. We took the fish to bowling and fed them a little bit and we got a straw while we were there to give them some air.

I took them home that night and put them in the tank. We had gotten some gravel to decorate their tank with, too, so I put that in there. I remember I was really unsure of what I was doing and it took me a while to get everything all sorted out, thanks in part to the fact that the nearest source of water from me is like 66 steps away. But eventually I got everything sorted out, their air working and the light working and the gravel in place and I think I even got them a little decoration that night from Kenny down the hall, fed them again and went to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning I remember the three of them were all very very still and I was afraid they had all died and just frozen in position, but then I tapped their tank once and they all scattered. I fed them again before I went to drumline. When I came home, the largest and most gold-colored of them was laying on his side on the bottom of the tank, dead. I didn't know what had happened... I used tap water but I purified it and they'd only been in there a day and I introduced them to the water slowly and they made it through the night and I fed them and I just didn't really get it. I remember it was rainy that Sunday when I got back from drumline, and I put him on a napkin and took him to one of the pretty courtyards in front of Atherton and dug a hole for him with a flat grey rock I found there in front of a tree and looked at him one last time, closed my eyes and folded him up and tried to cover him in his spot as nicely as I could. It was a very sad time for me actually.

After that, we named the fish. Gina and I were talking and we decided to name the small silver one Piaget and the middle-sized orange/white/black one Gauss, after the famous academics. We named the largest one Golden after his color, and the fact that we were very sad about his death and there is a Fallout Boy song with the same name that is appropriately sad. Anyway. Piaget and Gauss were doing well that first week from everything I could put together. I remember telling Gina a bunch of times that Gauss and Piaget were swimming happily and I was happy that they were doing well.

Then, I think on Wednesday after I came back from class, I saw that Piaget was swimming funnily. He was on his side a lot and seemed to have a lot of trouble going to higher elevations in the water. Sometimes when he would swim he would do corkscrews through the water. I looked up what was wrong with him and found out it was his air bladder of course, and tried to find out how to fix it. You're supposed to slowly lift them up and down in the water to try to sort out whatever is wrong with their balancing and adjusting mechanisms. I tried to use a spoon to do this a couple of times, but Piaget kind of resisted letting the spoon lay beneath him, so I couldn't really do that. I noticed, throughout the night, though, that Gauss kept getting underneath Piaget and pushing him to the top and then letting him fall back, like he knew that was what he needed to do to fix him. It was so adorable. That's when I decided that Gauss was the best fish ever. I tried to take a video of Gauss doing this but I could never get it at the right moment.

I had to go to hockey that day and I was leaving for Dayton the next day and I had to pack and eat dinner and I remember I was out of the room a lot and I was sad that I couldn't be there to try to take care of Piaget. I did just about everything I could for him. I had some room temperature pure water laying around, I believe, so I put that in there, and I fed him and I purified the water again just a little bit and I tried to lift him up and down. I don't think there was much else that I could do. I was afraid that he would die when I was out of the room and I'd feel guilty for not being there or something like that. He was alive when I came back from hockey, and from dinner, and throughout packing, and he was there that night until 1AM or so at least. I remember he was laying on the gravel in his tank when I said went to bed and I got one last look at him knowing it might be the last time I saw him alive. When I woke up the next morning he was laying dead on his side in a different spot, and I buried him in the same manner right next to Golden.

Gauss is the only fishy left. He seems to be doing fine. He is a very good boy and he was wonderful to Piaget when he was sick and I'm glad that I saved him. Oh, I should say, we found out later that Brandon and Laura bought the three of them as feeder fish for bigger fish that Brandon had. So I'm glad I saved at least Gauss.

There is a chance Gauss is a girl. To be determined, I suppose.

Peace out.