Once upon a time last year, Girlpants and I went to Emperor Tropicals to look around. The store was hot, cramped and pokey, but they had many many fish to look at. Girlpants asked me which fishies I wanted and within an hour, we left, happily with two silver sharks, several blue neons, a bullied angel fish in need of TLC and four tiny baby clown loaches.
Within a week however, the neons had been murdered by the top floating catfish and the baby loaches had died of fright. Except one. Three weeks later, we noticed one survived. And we called him Larry.
Larry was a survivor - he had tank smarts that helped him to hide with the bigger clown loaches within the wood and the plants, far far away from the bigger fish. And he slowly grew in size and confidence, happily playing with the bigger clowns around the tank in a game of chase early in the mornings. And we always kept and eye out for him, taking extra care to make sure some choice flakes of food made it close to his hiding place.
But now I'm sad - my little Larry left us tonight to the bigger fishtank in the sky. BUt what a better and bigger fishtank it will be...
Night night Larry. Every time I look at the orchid I buried you under, I'll think of you.