🦑 Misunderstandings
Originally written on November 7, 2022
Macy the betta fish is gone.
I stop and just sort of stare at the fishless bowl on the table. It’s still half-full, a coagulation of bubbles floating on the water’s surface like a feeble attempt at sea foam. Someone must have switched out the water at some point, because it’s perfectly clear and sediment-less. I crouch, bringing the bowl to eye-level, and watch as the kitchen beyond it distorts along its curvature. It looks clearer this way, somehow. Maybe I do need glasses.
I can tell he’s behind me before I even turn.
“Ori,” I begin, the barest hint of ire in my voice, “did you move Macy?”
He moves into my field of vision. He has the gall to look sheepish at least, nervously tugging on a strand of hair. “Mhhh?”
“The fish.”
He makes a show of looking at the table before looking back at me.
I exhale, trying my best to keep it measured. “Did you eat the fish?”
Ori blinks owlishly and nods.
“I know, I know, fish is food. You eat it to survive. But this fish,” I point at the fishbowl, “and that fish are different.”
“Mgggh?”
I scrunch my eyebrows together, searching for a way to explain ‘emotional attachment’ to the most tactless sea horror I’ve ever met. “Macy was a friend. You eating her kinda upset me.”
Ori cocks his head. I can practically see the gears turning as he processes my words.
Then he unhinges his jaw, reaches his arm into his throat, and pulls out the carcass of a dogfish. Bile and unidentified fluids string out with it and onto the carpet. He stumbles forward, gagging, the dogfish dangling in his grasp like the haul of a particularly accomplished fisherman. Half of its skin is missing, bones peeking out along its stomach and spine. He looks at it, as if the sight is novel even to him, before placing it into the fishbowl with delicate fingers.
The fish’s dead eye stares up at me from the bowl.
“Okay,” I venture slowly, “that’s cool and all, but can you bring back Macy specifically?”
His brow furrows as he considers it. He brings up his arm, jaw halfway to unhinging, before stopping and shaking his head. A twinge of remorse crosses his eyes.
“That’s fine. You tried.” I sigh, patting him gingerly on the shoulder. I’m still trying to process why I found that weirdly touching. “Just- next time, don’t touch anything in a bowl like this, yeah?”
Ori nods vigorously. There are still traces of the liquid-I-wish-to-stay-ignorant-about around his mouth, so I hand him a napkin. He kneels and starts using it to clean up the carpet instead.
Fondness seeps like warmth into my chest. I fight to keep it down. “Mind if I get rid of-” I glance at the upside-down dogfish corpse- “Macy 1.1?”
“Hhhrg?”
“Not enough of a version change. More like the Macy day one hotfix patch.”
He turns around to look at me judgingly. Get a life, I feel like he’s saying.
“You first.” I shoot back, because I’m big on having imaginary arguments with myself. He goes back to cleaning the carpet.
