Funny Fish

The Fish doesn't seem to be eating as much. He takes only a few pellets of food each day, but he doesn't seem enthusiastic lately. He swims around, but mostly he is camouflaged in the fake plant. There may be a tear in his fin. Often, he wedges himself into the plant, then struggles to get out. Sometimes I think he's saying, Uhn, uhn, help me, the way a child purposely gets stuck on a ledge or in a box and can't get out, then calls for attention.

I have a tube heater in his tank. It rests vertically in the water. The Fish wraps himself around the tube and slides to the bottom, like a stripper wrapping herself around a pole, like a fireman sliding down and landing on his feet. He also wraps himself around the electronic filter, despite the humming and slides down that.

I've seen him in hyperdive, plummet straight down to the bottom of the tank, only to rattle the pebbles, and swoop up again.

And then there are times he sits on a leaf, eyes closed, proving that fish do have eyelids. It doesn't matter what I do, how noisy I am, he stays fast asleep. When he does wake up, he "stumbles" about the tank, coming to alertness. When he sits at the bottom of the tank, he fans out his sheets of Betta tail and fins under the leaves, fluttering his little pectorals, as if he's taking in the breeze. Sometimes, he looks like he's just flopped down on his side at the bottom of the tank.

I can't tell if he's happy or if I've just projected happiness onto him in the past.