what goldfish taught me about the end of things

When I was 9, my younger brother convinced our parents to get him a small aquarium with goldfish. We picked out the fish together at Walmart and took turns feeding them little bits of food each day. The tank they swam in was shaped like a fire hydrant and lit up by a fluorescent bulb.

One night, not long after we’d become siblings to a tank full of fish, my parents woke me up and said they were going to drive back to the store to buy more goldfish because four of the five fish had died—and they didn’t want my brother to wake up to a tank full of dead fish. The thought of being left home alone at 11 p.m. terrified me, but I had no intention of ruining their plans. Once I heard my parents giggle their way out the back door, I walked to the living room where all the lights were off, except for the aquarium bulb shining on one remaining fish. 

I climbed into the recliner and sat staring at this lone fish survivor. It was swirling in circles, sometimes rapidly and then slowly. Within a few minutes I realized there was a pattern: its gills would flap with all their might and then a whoosh of rest would come over him. Another burst of energy would show up, pushing the fish optimistically toward the top of the tank again, and then it would slowly sink back down again.

I was mesmerized and thankful to be distracted from the fear of robbers breaking into our home and kidnapping me and my brother. But soon the fish’s rhythm stopped, and it rose to the top of the tank. 

I just watched a fish die, I thought. That’s how a fish dies.

I don’t know if all fish die this way, but that night, a fish was fighting and pushing and trying to make it to the surface for something, anything, but in the end its final moments were on the way. 

I’ve thought of this experience over the years and wondered if the fish knew it was dying. Or if it was acting on instinct. Maybe the fish was putting on a show for me as its last gift of belonging.

But I often think that this burst of pushing and trying is seen in lots of places outside a fish tank: in the ending of a marathon, a religion, a relationship, a political regime, a human life. We put on a pretty spectacular show when we sense the end is near. We fight like hell, and sometimes, it seems, a whole lot of us justify creating hell on earth when the entire planet can see the end is nigh. 

When I saw the car headlights flash into the living room, I knew my parents had made it back with another bag of 50-cent goldfish. I raced back to my bed and arranged my legs and arms just as they’d been when my parents left, so I wouldn’t get a spankin’ for leaving my room. And when I woke up in the morning, there was a tank of goldfish for my brother to care for, as if nothing had ever come and gone overnight.