Les fishes!

As I sit and stare at my fish tank, on a lazy afternoon, I think to myself…

What is it like to be a tiny fish in a fish tank?

I wonder what it would be like to always keep swimming, in various directions, apparently with a purpose. Fishies, sometimes you swim swiftly chasing the currents of the filter bubbles as if you just remembered what you'd forgotten to do. And then sometimes you just lazily pace about, as if you’re taking a walk in the park or as if thinking about something.

Do you see the various colors put into your fish tank aimed at making it a more fun place for you? The mulberry red pebbles mixed together with the sea green, bleached white and bark brown ones? The different props with holes in it so that you can swim in and out of it?

Do you appreciate the difference in taste between the freeze dried blood worms and the fast red worms? Or do you like the flake food better?

I wonder what you must be thinking, when you see the many humans around you- one opening the lid and sticking her finger inside, just to see if you'd be interested to nibble, one making goofy funny sounds cause she finds you all so cute!

Do you feel like you’re privacy’s been invaded by having you live in a transparent glass house? Do you ever feel self-conscious when I keep staring at you and watching your every move with a passion? I know you don’t have a mind like mine which thinks, or at least a mind which thinks about what she thinks! Meta-cognition is after all exclusive to humans. But still, I would be interested to know how you function mentally.

Fishies, you are all so marvelous, SubhanAllah!

My favorite is the black silver and orange goldfish with bobbing eyes. Sometimes it seems like she's looking at me with those big bulging eyes, and sometimes she just goes on about with her eccentric, wayward swimming like she's having a seizure.

I wonder, if there was one thing you could tell me, what would that be?