Love Hurts

(Originally published on www.theweekender.com 03/05/08)

In the past month, I have witnessed the definition of love. It all started when my roommates and I moved into our apartment in May 2006; it's hard to believe it's been almost two years already. Well, anyway, we instanteously decided we needed a pet, and since it stated in our lease this was a complete "no-no," our only option was to get fish. On our first visit to the pet store we all went in like little kids in a candy store with our noses pressed up against the glass pointing to the clerk which ones we wanted. We then trekked out to our car with our fish in hand and our spirits high. No more than two weeks later, all but two fish died, and we were back at the pet store picking out fish to accompany the two we had left, who, by the way were named Spook and Mickey.

As time went by, and several pet store trips later, Spook and Mickey were the ones that seemed to survive. They survived the great fish tank break of 2007, they survived when the tank water turned a goldish brown color and emergency fish extraction was needed. They were some tough cookies, to say the least. We started to believe that they were bullies; how else could we explain the fact that these two fish survived being in the tank with Beta fish, who as you may know, are very territorial. Not only did they survive the beta, the beta disappeared. Completely. It was like Spook and Mickey only needed each other to survive in our makeshift pirate dungeon we had created (complete with a skull smackdab in the middle. come on, what did you expect).

Then it happened.

The exact date of Spook's death is unknown. And I am not sure who noticed first, but one day we noticed that Mickey was acting a bit odd. Quite frankly, his swim was off, there was no bounce to his splish, no feeling in his splash. He just wasn't himself, and then we noticed Spook belly-up in the rocks. This clearly was the reason for Mikey's weirdness. Generally speaking, my roommates and I do not like extracting dead fish from our tanks -- that priveledge usually goes to unsuspecting guests -- but at the time of Spook's death, the guest pool was dry, so he lay there at the bottom of the tank completely lifeless. All the while, Mikey became more and more melancholy, as melancholy as a fish could be. Until one day we found Mikey curled up on top of Spook. As if they just had re-enacted a scene from "Romeo and Juliet" Mikey too was now completely lifeless. It appears as though he could not live with the heartache of not having his best friend and soulmate swimming with him harassing and killing other fish.

It was an act of friendship.

It was an act of love.

We could learn a lot from those two.