Fish

Fish don’t get proper funerals.

They don’t get the proper attention they deserve either.

We get fish, put them in a tank with a nifty paper background of their natural habitat and then they just… live. 

It’s sad, really. Swimming in circles, er…rectangles, day after day, waiting for some oblivious human to come sprinkle deliciousness from the heavens.

We clean their tank every once in a while.

                And by every once in a while, I mean when it starts to turn green and becomes an eyesore in the living room.

We don’t normally name them. And we don’t spend time with them. We coexist peacefully in the same house until one day, little Joe Fish has gone belly up and we scoop him out of the tank before he contaminates the waters or before the kiddies can see.

He gets flushed down the toilet to rot away in the septic tank. And in a few days, when we get time to go by the pet store, we replace him without a second thought.

                We do not grieve over his short, aquatic life.

                We do not say a few words in his honor before the final flush.

                He does not get a witty epitaph.

Fish don’t get proper funerals.