About the Betta

Beautiful fins and tail fan around the Betta as she swims in circular paths. She’s alone except for the roots of the peace plant that grows on top of the water.

I take care of his fish while my brother travels with his wife. They cruise while they wait for spring. No need to worry about me leaving town. Trips I thought I would be making are all a dream; I’m retired, divorced, and alone.

Swimming around my house, I’m not nearly as graceful or as at peace as the Betta.  Maybe she’ll tell me her secrets. Part of her charm is her beauty. I look in a mirror at my neglected face, hair, and body.

“Maybe I should do something about myself,” I reason to the Betta. I put some crème on my face and it disappears, into my parched skin. Maybe it’s the water. The water adds moisture, and the swimming keeps her in shape. I should sign up at the Y for swimming lessons. My arthritic knees could stand swimming. If I lost some weight.  Some weight? A lot of weight I realize as I check my not-so-svelte profile in the reflection of the fish bowl. Swimming, that’s what the Betta is telling me. Maybe swimming. What does she know? With beautiful fins and tails, nobody even notices her weight.

I remember the Oprah Show,“One Hundred Hair Cuts in Forty Eight Hours.” Those women went from chubby to thin and graceful in forty-eight hours. A hair cut would be easier than swimming. “Charles and Company,” that’s the hairdresser my daughter told me about. I’ll call information and get the number; I can do this.

“What is your emergency?”

“Emergency? I must have the wrong number.”

“You dialed 911.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I must have dialed 911 instead of 411. I wanted information.”

“I need to get your name.”

“It’s O.K. I must be getting old. It was a mistake.”

“Madam, don’t hang up. We have to follow up on every call.”

I look at the Betta. “Don’t look so calm. This is all your fault.”

“Look fish, this is an emergency, you make me feel like a foolish, hysterical, old woman.”

“Nana? Are you talking to your fish?” It’s my grandson.

“Who else is there to talk to?” I try to look calm.

“I was going to see if you could help me with my Algebra, but if it’s a bad time…”

“I thought you hated math.”

“I do, but if I don’t do it, I can’t have the car.”

“Well, I can’t go anywhere. The police are coming.”

“The police?” he looks worried.

“I dialed 911 by mistake.” He turns to cover his grin. “Not funny.”

After he leaves, I continued to watch the Betta. I notice bubbles on top of the water all around the roots of the peace plant. I wonder if I am feeding her too much or too little. I decided to go to my amazing source of all knowledge, my computer.

I found out my Betta fish is not a female but a male, and he is making a bubble nest for his young. “Wow.” I thought, “ These fish have quite a system. The male Betta makes a bubble nest; the female lays the eggs and leaves immediately, for fear of being eaten by the male who stays to care for the young.

A phone call from my ex-husband is a pleasant distraction. The Beta swims around while we talk about life on the farm, the beautiful farm I left not once but twice.

“When are you coming back?” the same question sometimes out loud, sometimes just hinted. “I’m coming for a visit,” he promises for the hundredth time.” This time he has set a date.

“Fine,” I say and hang up.

I look at the Betta. “You are alone because you eat your mate,” I scold him.  I stare at him, I don’t want to be eaten alive by the farm or the demands of a farmer. I want to swim away fast.

It said on the computer that the Betta goes into attack mode if someone holds up a mirror and shows him his reflection.

P. Avice Carr is a human tumbleweed. She has rolled through twenty-nine towns in North America, collecting stories along the way. Today she resides in St. Thomas, Ontario and is pulling the stories out of the tumbleweed and writing them down. She enjoys writing short stories, and working on a novel. Her short story “Sister Power” was published in A Cup of Comfort for Sisters as the lead story.  She is currently working toward a Bachelor of Arts degree with a Minor in Popular Literature and Cultural Studies and a Minor in Creative Writing.