When I first started my current job there was a fish tank at work. There were only two fish in it. One of them died months ago, but the other, a suckerfish, remained. After a while they got some new fish. Tiny ones. Mostly danios. A couple of them died over the months, and on Friday the suckerfish joined his friend in that fish tank in the sky.
But it wasn't removed from the tank until this morning. It had been in there for the weekend, and I had to wonder what that must have been like for the other fish. "Holy shit! Mike's dead! And he's, uh, sticking around, I guess. Maybe let's not swim too close to him." By the time I saw the fish today it had started to rot. It reminded me of Earl.
Over the years I've tried to keep things alive at my desk. I had Sea Monkeys at Conference Plus for many years, but I went on vacation once. I figured putting the office vegan in charge of keeping them alive would do just the trick, but she overfed them and killed all but three of them. I nursed those three back to health, and soon I had a tank full of the li'l fellas again. Until I went on vacation again, and another coworker knocked the tank over, killing them all.
I also had a spider plant that went with me from Conference Plus into the Arkadin years and then I took it to Call One with me. When I left Call One and entered into the Year of Fucking Not Working it died.
And then there was Earl. He was a little blue beta fish I had when I first started at Conference Plus. My friend who had referred me for the job got Earl for me as a cube-warming gift. She gave me food and stuff to clean the bowl, etc. And she said that these things were supposed to live for a long time with minimal effort on my part.
I did everything I was supposed to. I followed her instructions to a T. And you've probably already guessed what happened.
That's right. Soon Earl started swimming on his side. I'd tap the glass, and he'd straighten out, but eventually the day came when he didn't. I saw that he'd died late on a Friday. However, I had to be somewhere by 6:30 that night. I got out at 5, and it took me about an hour to drive from Schaumburg to Elmhurst. So yeah, I was in a hurry. I figured I'd give Earl his toilet funeral on Monday.
When I got back I saw that he'd rotted pretty quickly. He had moldy spots all over him, and his fins had fallen off. I took him to the bathroom and took him out of the bowl with his net. I wasn't about to just pour everything into the toilet. I wanted to keep the pebbles and the decoration for the next fish I planned on getting.
I took Earl to the toilet and flipped the net upside down. He did not fall out. I shook the net, and nothing happened. I flicked the back of the net, and he still stayed in there. It took a while, but he finally dropped out of the net and hit the rim on the way down. He left a blue Earl-shaped mark on the porcelain that was kind of disgusting. I wiped it off and flushed him.
And then I saw that there were blue drops on the tile behind me from the sink to the stall. I cleaned up the rest of Earl's remains and washed out the bowl.
But I didn't get another fish. I lost my heart for that kind of thing pretty quickly.
I currently have nothing alive on my desk except for the bugs that live in the office. There are many spiders and other things I can't identify. They have traps all around us, but the little fuckers still manage to get around. But I just don't have the heart to try to keep something else alive after all this time.
RIP Earl and that big suckerfish. His name might not be Mike. I don't know. I made that part up. But maybe Mike and Earl are together in the great beyond. Hopefully not in an office. If there's an office in the afterlife, then I'm probably going to be stuck there. I've spent the last 15 or so years hoping I don't die at work.
Poor bastards who do.
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