My Goldfish Keeps Trying to Kill Himself

Greg swam happily, but lazily around the tiny castle nestled in the colorful gravel of his tiny bowl. I watched him slip through the narrow door and out the back as the commercials ended.

A middle-aged, ethnically ambiguous man shouted excitedly at me about some new species of slug or something. I wasn't paying much attention. I had hoped some mind-numbing infotainment would make a good distraction. Instead, it only served as ambience for the swirl of stress storming in my head.

Rent would come due soon. My car badly needed new tires. As if that weren't enough, my girlfriend had been distant while on her "girl's trip" to Cabo. My phone sat silently beside me, as it had for hours. I tapped the screen, and it lit up to reveal...nothing. No little envelope symbol up in the corner, no big blue logo emblazoned with an F, and no little bird or butterfly. Just the clock on my lock screen, shining with an indifference found only in the realm of the objective.

12:32AM

I told myself that I had to accept that I wouldn't be hearing from her again today, or maybe ever. I stood up and crossed the room, dipping the tip of my finger into Greg's bowl.

"Well, at least I've got you buddy. Oh shit, you're probably hungry," I reached for the container of fish flakes, my heart sinking at how light it felt in my hand. "Here you go, Greg."

A meager scattering of flakes spread across the surface and sunk slowly toward the bottom of the bowl, most never making it there. Greg tore after them like a vicious predator. He gobbled them all up until only one remained, stuck loosely to the sidewall of the bowl. Greg swam up to it, opened his mouth, and just then something happened.

I had my back turned to it, so I didn't see exactly what it was. A bright flash came from the television. In my memory, I watch the light spread across Greg's little fish face in slow-motion. His orange scales are briefly tinged a deep purple, standing stark against the blazing white light coming from the television. I hear a voice, a whisper's whisper, saying something I can't understand.

The voice itself sounds like a gaggle of bees trapped in a thin tin can, humming and pulsing in a rich, droning vibration. I can't even begin to phoneticize whatever godless thing it said. It sounded like a word, but it felt like a number. I get that probably doesn't make a lot of sense, I'll try to explain. Words are shifting, often unreliable and inconsistent things. Numbers simply are what they are. There is no room for argument, nor interpretation. 1 is 1, and that is all.

It all happened in a fraction of a second, and at the time I was quick to wave it off. Ever since then though, any time I leave the room I come back to find Greg spasming on the table beside his bowl. I called him dumb the first time, and the second and the third, but he's made hundreds of attempts over the last week. It's a wonder that he's still alive at this point. I'm not sure what to do.

Anybody know of a therapist who works with goldfish?