Elvis Has Left the Building...

Our second goldfish, Elvis, breathed his last, sometime last night...almost exactly two months after Presley left us...

This time, I was better prepared...Presley's demise had been a painful experience, but it had acquainted me most succinctly with the phenomenon of death. Over the last few days, Elvis's behaviour had displayed all the markers that indicated that he would soon be leaving his body behind and I had been able to take myself through the process of anticipatory grief. This helped quite a bit, but nevertheless, a part of me is aching and wishing that I had just a few more days to try and help Elvis. Yesterday, two fluid filled sacs appeared on his head, almost like tumors of some kind. I was alarmed when my sister noticed them...there had been some black markings before, but we were not able to tell what they meant...we had even changed the water in his bowl and medicated it only a couple of days ago. What is more, the hungry lil' fella had stopped eating entirely and spent all his time hiding at the bottom of the bowl. We remembered that these were the signs Presley had shown prior to his death and somehow started preparing for the worst. Nevertheless, I went online and looked for possible diagnoses and cures...finding nothing matching the exact symptoms. There was something about feeding the ailing fish some chopped, skinless peas and I had determined to try this as a last resort, this morning, but by the time I woke up, our helper had already found the lifeless body and buried it with my father's permission...

I think they did a good thing, by not letting me see the body. I'm not really squeamish about such things but I guess it would really have been disconcerting to see Elvis's carcass, just when I had plans to try and treat him. Seeing the large flower pot in which he had been buried, was a quick and abrupt way of making me realise the finality of the situation. There was no use in thinking about what could have been done...Elvis had left and was not about to return...

To mark his passing, all I did was stick some burning incense into the mud that held his little body and say a silent prayer, asking for his spirit to make its way quickly and comfortably into it's next life and body. As I stood there, eyes closed and hands folded, a beautiful sensation closed over me, and I felt that somehow he had heard my prayers. I felt a like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders and a gentle tingling sensation spread over my torso and arms. It's difficult to describe how it worked, but in that moment, I just knew that he had moved on and what was under the freshly turned earth in which the incense rapidly burnt its way down to the stub, was at best a transient and feeble reminder of the lively being that had graced my home for over a year. The Elvis that I missed will always be a part of my memories...a flash of orange in a large bowl of water, brighter than the coloured rocks...