Abhi's+Memoir

Swoosh. Trouty went down the toilet, dead. After only two days, I had miserably failed to keep a goldfish alive. Maybe he was overfed. Maybe he had drowned. To this day I do not know the cause of his death.

I won my glistening pet at my school’s summer carnival. I had to land a ping pong ball in one of 75 small fish bowls. I can still recall the moment I won. “Next,” a burly high-school boy called. I gave him three of my carnival tickets in exchange for one ping pong ball. I wore a serious look, determined to win a fish. The boy in charge of the booth stared at me cautiously and placed his hand on my shoulder and said, “Good luck, sir.” I stared at him awkwardly for a moment, and then took a few steps back to a strip of masking tape marking a throwing distance for kids my age. I felt like an Air Force pilot as my eyes locked onto a fishbowl. I gently tossed my ping pong ball towards the bowl. I could feel the eyes of all the kids behind me watching the ball. It landed on the edge of one of the bowls and started doing a “toilet bowl,” already warning me of the burial of my fish. The ball slid off the glass rim of the container and was now floating calmly inside. I had won my very own fish! I could not believe my luck. On the ride home, my mind flashed on a fortune I had once received in a Panda Express® meal. It had read, “Your aquatic skills will come in handy soon.” I wasn’t sure if “aquatic skills” applied to throwing things into fish bowls, but my nine-year-old brain told me it did.

While I watched Trouty swim around in his new home, my dad went to PETCO® to buy fish food. As soon as he came back, I sprinkled the smelly flakes of food in Trouty’s underwater residence. That night, I went to bed listening to Trouty swim in his bowl. I had a dream that I was a fish. I swam through the sea, making friends with sharks and meeting new goldfish. The sound of Trouty swimming was incorporated in my dream. It was as if I was swimming through a quiet waterfall. Suddenly, the waterfall stopped. It was 8 o’clock in the morning and I saw Trouty upside down in his bowl. He did not move. My parents explained to me that Trouty had died. My dad tried to lighten the mood by saying, “There’s something fishy about this…” I was distraught by Trouty’s death. My mind was flooded with emotions. I could immediately feel tears welling up in my eyes, but I held them back. I had been so happy to finally have my own pet to take care of, and now he was gone. Did I do something wrong to Trouty? Was I responsible for his death? Would PETA arrest me for harming an innocent fish?

I decided I would have to destroy the evidence to avoid prosecution. Without telling my parents, I poured Trouty into the toilet and flushed him away. Now he would be able to rest in peace with his fish friends forever. As Trouty disappeared from my sight, a new and mysterious thought was born in my mind: How could Trouty die so soon? Despite all the love and care I had provided, Trouty wasn’t even with me for 48 hours. Maybe my fortune cookie was referring to the disposal of a fish…