Today I watched a fish die.

he was very tiny.

Out of the midst of the rest of the calmly floating creatures rocketed a body so frantic.

Like he was wiggling out of a straight-jacket.

He dashed himself against the sides, fellow inmates, and surface, stopping and going in sudden spurts.

The first time he stopped I thought he'd died.

Surely he'd realized his body was failing him and give in to the inevitable end.

But he kept struggling.

I don't know if he was trying to flop from

the water into the outside world,

so that a new land would be the last thing he ever saw,

so that he'd know at least he went somewhere, did something,

or if he was racing towards the end, eager to get away from the monotonous existence of a fish.

Maybe he was simply grasping for the few moments of motion he had left inside him before it all went away.

I don't know that I could ever be happy

knowing when I was going to die.

But at least in those last few hours, when I knew

there was no saving myself,

I hope I would spend them peacefully.

Calmly accepting that what I had done up to that point was all my life could count for.

Maybe that life will mean a great deal to a few.

But even if by some chance it ends up meaning nothing at all,

I hope I will have the sense to let it go.