Dante Is A Fish

Dante is a fish. I hope the title didn’t ruin it for you. He’s a Betta, to be exact. To be more colloquial, he’s an ass-kicking Siamese Fighting Fish. I can only assume he can kick ass; I haven’t trained him. I figure there was some kind of aquatic Mr. Miyagi at the pet store to handle the kung-fu aspect of his crazy lifestyle.

I didn’t name him Dante. My sister did when she gave him to me. Somewhat as a gag gift I imagine. Perhaps a social experiment to see if I was worthy to take care of another living thing, (besides that patch of mold I’ve been growing in my dirty clothes bin for the last 18 months. His name is Gary.) You see, I don’t have the greatest track record when it comes to stuff like that. With both animals and plants. Maybe it’s my natural ability to be extremely self-absorbed and my astounding lack of empathy for others. Who can say?

Every plant I’ve owned, up until the last five years or so, has been a cactus. My logic being that cacti live in the desert; they barely get water. So I only make the least amount of effort to keep the plant alive and it’ll do fine. It does its cactus thing, I do my human thing, we both exist in the same room, it’s all gravy. His name is Arthur. Arthur the Cactus.

That logic is what led me to have at least four Arthurs in my life, (Why bother coming up with a new name? My time is too valuable to be naming all the green things in my life. Cartoons aren’t gonna watch themselves.) I’m not entirely sure of the various ways in which my Arthurs died, but I did learn one valuable lesson in my capacity as a plant owner: don’t water them with bong water; there’s no such thing as a cactus/weed hybrid.

I currently have a hanging ivy plant named Porthos, after the fat, bon-vivant Musketeer. He has a name because I actually put effort into keeping him alive. He was given as a consolation present (is that a thing, by the way?) when my father died. Which means Porthos is over three years old. Not bad. I guess I’m growing more responsible in my old age.*

Dante is my first pet. As in, my own personal pet. My family had a cat when my sister and I were growing up. Don’t ask me what kind of cat, I don’t know from cats. All I know is she was black with orange splotches and she disliked everybody but me. Her name was Prickles, just like Gumby’s yellow dragon friend. We almost named her Pickles, but I’m glad we didn’t. Isn’t that what Doug named his dog?

My sister is to pets what I am to plants. She’s like a real-life Elmyra from Tiny Toons. Stephen King could have written three sequels to Pet Sematary based off our backyard alone. It was a regular Noah’s Ark of Death back there. She has no pets now and each summer, the plants in her garden commit seppuku rather than suffer under her care.

Dante is about one-year old. He spends his days and his nights alone, in a fish tank, about 8”x6”x8”. Not very big, but then again, he’s not a big fish. Every morning, I feed him flakes of food that include fish as one of the ingredients. That means Dante is a cannibal. This pleases me. He wakes up when I wake up. Our schedules are as synced as two ladies sharing the same cycle for their menses. I assume he wakes when I do because it’s the only time he interacts with anybody or anything.

Once a week, (give or take) I clean out Dante’s tank. Not a complicated process. Probably like giving a dog or cat a bath but, oddly enough, with less water going all over the place. In the end, I give Dante some blood worms and let him go back to doing whatever the hell he does all day. I’m sure, like me, much of it involves napping.

Sometimes, I just look at Dante in his little tank. All he has is some pebbles at the bottom, along with a tiny pineapple house in the corner. Seems more like a gauche Christmas ornament than a tank decoration, but what do I know? Maybe Dante really loves SpongeBob. But anyway, that’s all he has in his tank. No other fish are allowed in there, because he’d try to beat them down or something. Maybe eat their corpses in victory? That’s what the pamphlet said, at least. And who am I to question the words of a pamphlet? Same thing applies when I read The Watchtower.

So I wonder what he does all day. All by himself. In a tiny tank. Does he miss his parents? His bros? The lady fish? The Incredible Mr. Limpet? As he swims around the same miniscule area he’s gotten to know over the last several months, I ponder: what does he think about? Does he discover anything new? Does he stare at me and my room the way I stare at him? Does he wonder what I think?

I coulda invented a story to tell through his eyes, I’m good at that. But I decided not to. I’m not sure I could imagine what goes on through his ridiculously small fishy head. Maybe nothing. Maybe he’s content. No goals to achieve. No mortgage or rent to pay. No career to suck his life away. Nobody to break his heart. No concern about what the fuck is going on with Kanye these days. All he does is chill out and eat…and poop.

I like that. The simplicity, (Not the pooping part. Although, I could be persuaded. Who hasn’t fantasized of sitting in front of a tv, watching The Six Million Dollar Man while defecating in their soiled sweatpants from a sports team that hasn’t existed since the 70s?** It’s the goddamn American dream!) Anyway, maybe there’s a lesson to be learned from Dante the fish.

Nahhh…

*I.E. feeding a plant beer is just alcohol abuse. Beer doesn’t grow on trees people! 

** Wow that’s an extremely specific scenario.