No, not Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray. My Dorian Gray. Some of you knew him, some of you didn't. Dorian Gray was the lovely little blue betta who has been my companion these two years and a few odd months. Ever at war with the image of himself. Yes, the name was a semi-obscure literary reference, but it made me chuckle. Anyway, I'm rambling a bit. I woke up this morning to find that Dorian had...crossed the bar (another semi-obscure literary reference). In short, Dorian Gray is dead. I would be lying if I said that I wept or that I'm devastated. But the title of this blog is Small Happenings, because I think the things that happen every day resonate with deeper meaning. The simple fact is that this morning I discovered with shock and the faintest note of horror that the little creature I'd greeted every morning for over two years was just suddenly not alive anymore. I knew they didn't live much longer than two years anyway, so I thought I was expecting it. Apparently I wasn't, because I dropped what I was holding, gasped, and reflexively stepped away from the tank. I covered the tank back up and walked out the door to leave for work, telling myself I'd take care of him when I got home. On the drive, I kept thinking of an idea that one of my favorite college professers would often talk about. I'll try my best to paraphrase. It went something like this: People say eternal life doesn't make sense, but the truth is just the opposite. We aren't shocked by people living. It's natural and normal to be alive. We're shocked by death. It feels deeply wrong and out of place. Death is the thing that doesn't make any sense.
Anyway, that's a little heavy for a post about my dead fish. A little on the lighter side, I'm fairly convinced Dorian heard me talking to people on the phone about my cat's imminent arrival and decided that a graceful belly-up death was greatly preferable to being eaten by a feline.
I never was able to take a picture of him that satisfied me. This one will have to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment