The goldfish is dying. The oldest shrugged and said she hadn't planned for the fish to live more than a week when she bought it 4 years ago. Its a life, and it deserves to be treated with respect. An angry responding question, "what's the difference when you catch fish?"
"What do we do with those fish? Don't we eat them? Have you ever seen us waste the fish--waste the life?" I'm much angrier at her for allowing her goldfish to suffer and die than my own mother was of me when mine suffered a similar fate.
Yet, I wonder as that poor goldfish struggles to live, or maybe struggles to die, even as the water has been changed and the tank cleaned, the guilt offering of food, I wonder at how its a lot like everything in my life right now. We need, we need, and we are ignored and shrugged off. We have no voice to be heard as we struggle through the drowning in everything.
Like our fish, we do our housekeeping; I've watched the fish move rocks to free its plant and move it to a more pleasing location. We keep our home painfully clean, trying to keep out the squalor associated with the poor. The kids cringe when stern voices question them on why shoes are out, or army men are left to march across the floor. I suppose its the only thing we can still control with certainty. It isn't fair to them, we know that, but to be poor and slovenly? Unthinkable. Like the fish with its rocks, its a compulsion we can't seem to control.
So, we keep our home clean. We forget the sad little goldfish burning in its ammonia saturated tank.
I can't help but watch the fish as it gives up, then fights to live, and then gives up, over and over.
I was once very proud of the new, little house, the trees with the sun glinting off the leaves, the brightly colored vegetables that grew, the beautiful kids and striking pets. The goldfish sparkled in it shiny new tank. It all glittered with lower, middle-class hope.
I'm not completely sure that we won't be like the fish. What happens if everything finally changes? What happens if nothing changes?
