27/09/06,In memory of..

The day marked the death of a fish of mine that has been with me for a very long time,almost 5yrs to be exact. It is none other than the sole surviving angel fish in my tank which i nicknamed 'dan2 xiao2 gui3" because of it's timidness when it comes to humans and it's bullying attitude when it comes to other fishes in the tank. Basically,i had it ever since it was still a baby. Recalling when i first bought it,it measured only about 2.5cm from head to tail and astoundingly,over the years,it had grown to almost 12cm. During the period which dan2 xiao2 gui3 has been with me,it has witnessed many changes around it,even those that had to do with my own personal life. These included several aquascape changes,the moving of house from tampines to the current one in hougang,the passage of me from singlehood,to being attached to singlehood once again as well as how i had moved on from secondary school,to junior college and finally to national service which i am now at. I used to dislike the way it bullied the other fishes,chasing them away from it's "territory" which seemed to span the entire fish tank but somehow,i had grown to repect it,as a fish that commanded respect yet at the same time,managed to weather through all the challenges if faced which included unfavourable living conditions at times. On the whole,i have seen how it has grown and how the colour on it's body has changed,from a juvenile silver colour to that of a matured golden tinge. In it's last days,it had ceased to eat and was seen struggling to keep afloat,sometimes even lying on it's side at the bottom of the tank. I then decided to catch it out of the main tank and proceeded to place it in a pail so that i could keep it under observation as well as to prevent the possibility of it dying in the main tank and having it's body eaten by other fishes. I tried to administer medication as well as vitamins in a hope that it was suffering from a disease that could be cured but i was wrong,ultimately,it was evident that it was suffering from old age and was just struggling to pass it's remaining time in this world. Ultimately,after about a week in the pail and it'd continued refusal to eat,my family and i came to a consencus that we had to put it down to remove it's suffering because if we did not do so,ultimately,it would still die of starvation which is more of a prolonged suffering. Henceforth,we caught it out and placed it in an airtight bag to quicken it's death by suffocation. It may seem to be very brutal but in weighing the amount of suffering that each choice would bring about,i'd say that suffocating it would be the more humane way of doing so. People may disagree with me but now that it is gone,what has been done has been done and afterall,in this world,in the treatment of animals and humans,there is such a thing as euthenasia and culling so why not question the world rather than question my actions?