Today at work, I had to euthanize a fish. It was still alive, sort of. I remember watching it flutter in and out of life, gasping as it floated at the top of the tank.
Depending on the circumstances, there are two ways you can euthanize a fish. You can freeze it, or you an smack it really hard against something. Usually I only freeze a fish if it has really bad ick or tail rot, but it's going to live for a few days at least. But this guy was almost dead, and to be honest, I was just gonna chuck him straight in the garbage anyways.
So I reached into the tank and scooped him out as discreetly as I could, slipped him into his plastic coffin and spirited him away to the back. I was just about to throw him to his shadowy doom when I happened to glance at the bag. He was still flickering around, suffocating on oxygen. It felt bad to make him suffer more than he had to.
Without a second thought, I brought my arm back and smashed the bag against the side of the garbage can. And that was that. He was dead.
I felt queasy afterwards; my heart was fluttering around in my chest. I don't think I can recall a time when I was overtly cruel to an animal, let alone having killed one (even if it was for good intent).
Can killing something as simple as a sickly fish have an emotional impact on a person?
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"Write with our backs to the wind and our faces to the hard, bleaching sun."