For Two Minutes

For two minutes I was a fish at Walmart. It was a rather dark exercise of imagination.

For instance, what if I were that one Beta fish that was more brown than magenta or turquoise? Who's going to buy a brown Beta? How many times would fish get restocked while that little brown one just sat there?

There is always that one fish who is sucked up against that vent thing. Deader than a door nail. Did that fish gradually drift that way after death, or did it die because it swam a little too close and got trapped and died of a massive hickey?

Goldfish are either at the bottom of the gene pool or they get no respect. Because there were at LEAST 20 dead ones all in a pile at the bottom of their tank. What's that all about? And do the live ones just swim around and avoid the dead gaze of their fallen comrades? That's gotta mess a fish up.

Why do some float when they die and some sink? And the saddest thing of the day: The little fish who swims sideways because he's on his way out. I'd rather be the trout in the meat aisle, dead under plastic with my son repeatedly poking its eye than be the sideways swimmer.

They say fish brains totally reboot with no memory of the past every three seconds. I hope that's true.

Excuse me, I will now go apply some black eyeliner and lipstick, stick a few hundred safety pins on my t-shirt and lay in a dark room listening to My Chemical Romance.