The Circle of Life, or: How not to hate them murderin’ herons

My happy ex-fish Bob never developed pond smarts.
I blame myself; while other aqua-garden stewards were schooling their fish in the art of stealth and avoidance,
I treated him like a happy farm pet.

Introduce predatory persistence and skill of the highest order to the equation. Death from above...

And now Bob, raised from a pup in our pond, Original Bob, tenure of more than a decade on this earth, dispatched but not engulfed (for lack of sufficient pharyngeal diameter). Dropped unseen by the piscivore into a thicket and found six days hence. More than a fish. A symbol, a shared experience, a touchstone of calm and fluid serenity in a stressful world. Now he feeds the microbes.

© Pseudocognitive