Zander

I remember, I was about nine or ten, and I had a fish. It was a Siamese fighting fish, I got the cheapest, coolest fish I could because that was the only pets we were allowed to have, and spending more than three dollars on a fish was out of the question. My fish's name was Zander, I don't even think that is how you're supposed to spell it, but I that’s how I spelt it when I was ten, so that’s his name. One day I was cleaning out his bowl, and this defiantly didn't happen on a regular basis. It would often be quite green by the time I got around to cleaning it. But on this particular day I had just finished cleaning out his bowl and as I was carrying it out of my kitchen back into my living room I dropped it. And it wasn't just a little fish bowl. It was quite big, I remember I had trouble carrying it. It was circular and it must have had a circumference close to a foot and it was about six inches deep, so it wasn't just a little spill of water. It was on carped that I dropped it. I don't remember my first thought but the first thing I did was look for Zander, pick his little wet, flopping body up and go submerge him in some fresh water. I didn't even hesitate picking him up, even though I don’t really enjoy touching fish, in my mind there was no other choice. After he was safely in a margarine container on my counter I went to clean up the mess. I remember a bowl lying on its side with a bit of water in it, a large wet spot on the floor that was still slowly spreading and a whole bunch of little blue rocks spewed over the carpet. It sucked. Cleaning it up, re-cleaning the rocks, and putting it back together. I think I got my mom to carry it back to the living room that time. The carpet remained wet for a while. That was closer to the beginning of Zanders life. Yeah, I thought he might die from shock or something, but no, he lived an amazingly long, boring life, probably about two or three years. I printed up a sticker that said "My name is Zander." and put in on the bowl, I think we still have his bowl, and I'm also quite sure that sticker is still on it. I got pretty sick of cleaning his bowl after that long, so I think it got cleaned even less towards the end. But he was a good fish, never complained much, he never swam much either. Most of his life he looked like he was either sleeping or dead. But he was a good fish.