ANIMAL SUICIDE

“AARON… AARON!”

“What!?” I called down from upstairs. I was lying on my bed, watching TV, fading into non-existence.

“Oh God, Aaron! The fish is dead. He killed himself.” My mother’s voice quivered.

“God-fucking-damnit. Like I need this shit.” I muttered as I stomped down the steps.

My mother has always been extremely paranoid. When she can’t find her purse, someone broke in and stole it. When one of us had a fever, it was life-threatening malaria. If I didn’t come home on time as a kid, I’d been kidnapped, dismembered, and left in a ditch.

“What. What. What!” I was angry. More stupidity I thought.

“The fish, it… it just committed suicide. Why did it do that?” Her voice was high-pitched and soaked with worry. She was on the verge of moaning.

“Where is it?”

“In the drain, for God’s sake do something!”

“What do you want me to do?” I walked over and looked in the sink and down the drain. There it was, shiny and bright. It was an orange and white goldfish. I wondered if suicide even existed in the animal kingdom. Do reptiles, and amphibians, other mammals call it quits when the going gets tough?

“Oh, do something. Why did he want to kill himself? Why did he do this to me?”

After the divorce, my mother went through a string of pets. Mostly dogs, Sammy is/was the first fish. I understood why she was upset; this was her new symbol of normalcy, of family.

“I don’t know why he did it. How did he get in there?”

“I was changing the water. I put him in a dish so I could dump his bowl, and he just jumped out. I was moving him over to the counter, and he just jumped out. Why do you think he wanted to kill himself?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Why did he do it?”