by Margo Macabee

Created on: October 23, 2009   Last Updated: October 27, 2009

One day I bought Larry, my ex-boyfriend, a massive salt water aquarium. It was three hundred gallons if it was one gallon. He spent many days setting up the filtration system, collecting the corals and rocks, trading and catching many fine aquatic fish for his new hobby.

Larry guarded and loomed over the tank consistently. If one fish was picking on another, he would grab a wooden dowel stick at the ready and chase the hostile fish away from its victim.

Larry brought home a reef fish that would back its tail into the small hole it lived in and make quick darts out to retrieve what foods would fall in front of their hole. Larry let the fish slowly adjust to the temperature and acclimate to the new salt water. He eased the fish so carefully into its new environment. When he finally let the fish free in the tank Larry stood by with his dowel stick, chasing all the other fish away from the new-comer.

The new fish hastily found and choose its new home but this location didn't suit Larry at all. He stood on his toes with the dowel stick in the tank and chased that fish from its home and forced it to the hole he wanted it to live in.

There would have been an infinitesimal difference in the look of the tank to have one fish, of a few dozen fish, in that hole instead of a hole one foot to the left but it mattered so much to Larry that he would spend hours watching the tank, staring at that fish until it dared to go where it wanted to. Then Larry would jump from the couch, grab the stick, dip it into the tank and chase the fish back over to where Larry wanted the fish to live.

The fish soon learned that being where Larry didn't want it to be was the most dangerous place to be and I truly recall the gleam in Larry's eye when he no longer had to chase the fish over to its unnatural home. The fish had accepted defeat and it was a great success for Larry.

All of the fish more or less acted like fish should, but if there was any deviation from what Larry want to see and have occur in his fish tank, Larry would grab his dowel stick and swish it aggressively at the law-breaking fish, demanding its conformity.

Maybe the fish could acknowledge that when they fought or lived in the wrong part of the tank, the dowel would come in and stop it or move it or somehow drive it to behave differently than what it wanted to, than what was innately natural to it. No matter what the fish wanted.

For those fish, the price of life, acceptance and safety was utter obedience, complete compliance

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>