My Brother bought Momo, that japanese fighting fish, for the sole purpose of watching him ‘fight’ his own reflection.
He would share this entertainment with the family by setting him up on the kitchen countertop (usually during dinner time food preperation) with a small hand mirror leaning against his bowl thus cleverly absolving himself of any food preperation duties. Momo would try to attack his own reflection endlessly which gleefully inspired my brother to offer up the encouraging shout: “GET YOURSELF!”
Could Momo, the japanese fighting fish, #1: Understand conversational english and/or #2: Hear him underwater ? Doubtful.
If he did hear my brother and understand would he have thought in reply: “THANKS, MAN!! YOU KNOW I’M TRYIN’! AND I’M GONNA KEEP ON TRYIN’ FOR YOU!! I LOVE YOU MAN!!”?? Again, Doubtful.
But, I digress.
Every nine days, when the house would ‘run out’ of drinking glasses, I would make a reconnaissance mission to my brother’s room to retrieve whatever I could find. The glasses would be there, waiting to be saved, with various levels of orange juice, milk or coke still in them, pillows of mold obscuring the residual o.j.
This time, a new, most special aroma flavored the familiar landscape. Behind the drinking glasses, Momo’s bowl was wedged into a window sill. Momo was dead. Floating on top, he had bloated up to about three times his normal mass. I went to grab the bowl and observed he was actually suspended above the surface of the water by glob upon glob of milky mold, almost transparent save for the strand upon strand of fish poop.
I was shocked he was dead but couldnt honestly remember the last time I had actually seen Momo. I confronted my brother about it, annoying him. “Oh, he died,” he replied.” What do you want me to do, bring him back to life?”
