I'm not too keen on aquariums.
The nightmare I had last night reminded of this peculiar fact. In the dream, my family's pet Westie was trapped in an aquarium and, despite my best efforts to revive her, I could not get enough air into her little dog lungs.
And the aquarium that she was trapped in?
This aquarium was the source of way too much childhood anxiety. During the twelve years that I lived at my grandparents' house, a countless number of fish swam into my life. Most notable was Bobo, some sort of freshwater fish that my grandfather actually caught and kept in our tank.
Mostly the tank was occupied by goldfish and their hundreds of babies. I took such delight when I saw my first goldfish baby. I studied these fish intensely, and even learned how they mated. They do it quite swimmingly, by the way. This is the saga of life. And, conversely, there is death. A little too much for my own good, though. At an almost daily rate, some sort of fish would die and would be floating top-side while the other fished swam suspiciously around its corpse. Cannibalism and Scooby-Do.
Welcome to my world.
And then, there were the suicidal fish.
I'd be minding my own business -- watching television or playing with the toys that were kept in the cupboard below the tank -- when a fish would suddenly jump out of the tank. Keep in mind that this was a covered tank and there were only about two inches of open area from which a fish could escape. These fish were motivated. Horribly frightened that these poor fish would die a gruesome death, but grossed out enough to not want to pick them up, I would scream for grandfather's assistance.
But my worst memory revolves around a leak in the tank. One day I came home to see a completely empty aquarium. I panicked, knowing that there were hundreds of new babies in the tank in the morning, when I left for school. It turned out that the leak in the tank forced my grandfather to drain the aquarium and, "despite his best efforts," he could only save the big fish. From that moment on, I hated the aquarium and forced myself to ignore its underwater activities.
And, now, I still have nightmares about that blessed tank.
