painting of Walleye, by Timothy Knepp, in the public domain
On my evening walk, I came upon a group of adolescent boys fishing from a small bridge over a sort of pond area. The water was rushing, roiling, running high after a weekend of seemingly endless rain. The boys' red flyer wagon was piled high with fish as long as the wagon bed, stacked on top of one another, their mouths forming perfect O's and--gasp--still moving. Right after I walked past, I heard a solid thud and turned around to see that one of the top fish had flopped out of the wagon--out of sheer will to live? desperation to return to the water? an involuntary convulsion?-- and landed on the sidewalk, much to the boys' consternation.
I think back to the series of goldfish I had as pets when I was in elementary school, and remember vividly the time I had two fish in a small glass bowl on top of my dresser. One morning I woke and started to feed the fish before school; quelle horror! only one active fish flipping around the bowl. I looked around the dresser for the missing fish, only to find a small crimson body on the floor near my feet.
More reasons I'm a vegetarian?
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