Oh, for the love of Betta

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by Rachel Chacon Editor-in-Chief

He doesn't have the easiest life, as he relies on me and only me to care for him. He lives in tap water drawn from the bathroom faucet, with an unimaginative assortment of pebbles and marbles from fish of tanks past. I wonder if he senses this and if it's a bit of a put off to his ego. The childish part of me hopes it is. I hope he doesn’t know he's loved by me and is thus ultimately in command. I couldn't deal with an even more arrogant fish.

I keep him at my bedside so when I'm at home he's near me, sees my movement and knows he's not alone-if he ever knew at all. The few times I've dropped him in the sink while cleaning his tank have yet to be fully forgiven. Once during the night he and his home took a spill, landing in a soggy, pebbly heap on the carpet. He lay there, not gasping for breath or hysterically flopping because he knew I was already up and scrambling to him. From our time together coupled with his countless hours of observation, he is well aware that these things tend to happen around me and in la casa de Raquel.

Betta is the last thing I see at night, before flicking off the lamp that glows from above-his sun. I watch as he glides through the water, his long fins swaying delicately. He really is a beautiful fish. Even when he stares rudely at me as I change clothes or when he hovers near his food canister as if its been years, even when (as I believe) he took out his tank mates one by one for a lack of anything better to do-he is beautiful. A magical sort of creature that can be bought and owned, somehow, in this world we get to live in.

Betta lived in a small plastic cup with around 2 dozen cousins stacked up, under and about him. These fish pyramids always look so pathetic, don't they? It's said Betas like living like this, in solitude-usually slumped in the corner of their tiny plastic cup. I call bullshit! Fish with fins like these are meant to dance and strut. Yes, preferably alone but that may have more to do with vanity than an inner core of viciousness. There is only one lead singer; the rest is just the band.

I saw him amongst the others and, like lovers say, I just knew. I politely looked over all the cups and their respective occupants. They were just as nice, had the potential to come home with me, tied tight in a baggie, and maybe stay awhile. But I knew I wanted the yellow one with coal black eyes, and the yellow one is what I got.

Occasionally we play a little game where the waving fingers of my hand dare to get within his eyesight. His already furrowed brow creases evermore and his gills fluff angrily, asking the fingers just 'who the fuck do they think they are'? The fingers retreat, beaten by the intense and powerful masculinity of Betta. He relaxes and continues his march around the tank, just wishing those fingers would show up again.
Just wishing

I tried to name him a few times but nothing was ever right, it just wouldn't stick. He'd brush them off and swirl his way away, leaving me to contend that is was just a suggestion. We even toyed briefly with 'Timmy', after a friend who bore the same flippant demeanor. Eventually, without further conference I settled on what he is: simply Betta. Who was I to try and label such an obviously unique being? Especially when it was clear from the beginning that he was what he was and is what he is; Betta.

Today we continue our lives, him on my nightstand and me laying belly down, eyeing him. I knocked Betta over again recently and his pebbles aren't as even as they usually are. I leave them like that; maybe he thinks he had a wild night of bachelorhood and tore the place up. I dropped in a small ceramic cross sometime back, as an afterthought, hoping it would help bring him into another Christmas with me. The cross is on its back laying in the shallower end of the misshapen pebbles. It has had its rocky adventures in Betta's tank too but has never once landed upside down. I take this as a good omen for Betta. He takes it as another thing he has to dig under for bits of precious and sparse food.

Oh, Betta.

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