Consider the Betta Fish

Betta fish are a popular breed of freshwater fish from Southwest Asia that are known for their colorful fins. They are easy to take care of and prefer to be alone, so they make great pets! Take yours home today! $7.99

In the beginning, there was darkness. Then a cup. A splash of tap water. A white lid with holes for pellet-shaped food. A cardboard box. A shipping container. A steel shelf.

Then there were flashes of color. Action refracting through the walls of a plastic cup. Mold creeping across the underside of the lid, his only companion. Tell me, mold, of the places you’ve been. Tree roots and overripe fruit and damp wood. Mailboxes and shower tiles and laundry rooms. The underside of pet-store betta fish cup lids.

Then came the picture. A deep cerulean dotted with coral across the shopping aisle from where he floated in his cup. A single enlarged betta fish fanning itself out, boasting rows of purple feathers on its fins. Through the mirror of his six-ounce cup, he could almost swim there.

He began making circles around the bottom of the cup, swimming as far in front of him as the confines would allow before taking a sharp right turn. The picture in the distance seemed closer with every turn–perhaps he was almost there! The cup was just an elaborate ruse for the pond that awaited him. Algae to duck behind. Reefs to dart between. Moss to blanket under. He circled faster, faster, until the water had formed its own little current just for him, sweeping him up and depositing him–

At the bottom of the cup. Above him, he expected to see the milky horizon of the water of a shallow pond.

In a memory that wasn’t his, he saw a stalk of submerged tallgrass, stems swaying in a current created by God Himself. As he swam closer, the stems parted for him, and the current grew warmer, deeper, inviting him towards them. The green wrapped around him and lifted him toward the glassy surface, where light sequined across the glassy water, smoothing out the closer he came.

From beneath, he saw the face of a small boy knelt above his pond. Rosy cheeks, wide eyes that he could almost see his own fins in. He fanned open, let the water ripple around him and fracture the surface. How powerful! How astounding, the boy must have been thinking as he blinked and his eyes widened. He clapped and pointed, and the water warmed like a hug. Perhaps this was what it meant to live, to be applauded simply for doing what you wanted. To be admired at your very best. The boy reached down and extended a finger..

Suddenly, the surface of the pond broke. The boy’s touch shattered the soft tropic and created a terrible outward zoom. He tried to swim upward, but the current shoved him back down, down, until he was met with the walls of the hard plastic cup and he sunk to the floor. He felt his fins contract, a fan being shoved into a purse, a feather being shoved into a cap. He called out to the picture of his pond across the aisle, but all that came out was a hollow bubble that popped on the surface.

When the pet store lights turned on the next day, the picture was the first thing to light up as he began swimming there in his mind. As his fins sulked in the stale water, he could almost feel the current rushing behind him, his muscles relaxing as he fanned open again. Then his fins awkwardly bumped into the plastic cup, and he clammed back together again, the weight of his fins dragging him down to the bottom of the cup where he bobbed just above the bottom for the rest of the day.

When the sun went down, the picture of the betta fish in the water began to light up as the orange light sparkled across its outstretched fins. They reached across the aisle and grabbed him. Come join us, they whispered like seagrass. He swam upward, but settled back down when he saw the lid of his cup instead of the surface of the pond. The pond sat there on the breaches of his memory, a place that was meant to be his but never was, a reef that he would be swimming carousels towards forever.

A sudden jerk against his cup. The water sloshed towards the lid, sending him flying upwards as the water rippled and bounced back and forth against the lid. Through the magnifying plastic, a boy pulling his finger back from the cup. The little boy was back! He swam towards the boy’s finger, towards the picture that was now behind the boy’s shoulder, and suddenly, his plastic cup tumbled forward. He somersaulted into the aisle, white lid bouncing off and empty cup landing at the boy’s feet.

The current returned as water rushed around him, whirpooling him forward toward the picture, toward that little blue pond that he had forever been seeking, and then…

The current stopped. The water stilled. His little body was met with a scorching pain as he lolled about in the puddled remains of the water in his cup. The boy was staring down at him now. He gulped water into his gills in shallow chugs, but there wasn’t enough.

He lay dying in this puddle in the middle of the pet store, under the watchful gaze of the boy, the fluorescent lights, the picture across the aisle, God. As he sucked in his final sips, he sprawled his feathery fins out for a final time, the boy’s eyes widening and hands clapping once again as he began to slip off. He swam in lines this time, circles a thing of his past in the plastic cup, toward the picture across the aisle. As he felt the surface of the water growing closer, glassier, shinier, his fins soared through the water like butterfly wings, fanning wider than they ever had, the last unbridled performance of a constricted life. As he lay dying in his puddle in the middle of the pet store, in the end, there was light.

In the wild, betta fish are found in shallow, warm, unmoving waters across Southeast Asia, such as rice paddies, marshes, and flooded plains. They thrive in areas with dense vegetation, using their elaborate fins to breathe air at the surface and building bubble nests for reproduction.