Post by Rhianne on Mar 9, 2018 17:47:58 GMT 10
Once upon a time, there were a married boy and girl who had bought a house together.
An old clapper of a house in need of plenty of love and attention, but it had a magical arboreal faerie garden and beautiful sunset views. In among the rocks, trees and scrub of the garden, their cats frolicked and hunted each other in playful warfare.
The garden also had a small swimming pool, and the boy, never having liked the idea of a sterile, chlorine-bleached money pit, decided that it would be much better if the pool was turned into a pond, with birds, fish and green life that blended in with the unspoiled natural surroundings of the garden.
The powered machinery of the pool was duly switched off, and as the months went by, aquatic plants like water lilies, rushes and iris were added. The water gained a more natural hue, with bird-life and insects flocking in their numbers to this oasis. It was ready for the next step. The boy soon visited a pet shop, and selected fourteen plain juvenile goldfish, those that are known as "feeder goldfish" in the marine aquarium trade. These were taken to their new home and lovingly released into their new habitat.
They thrived! The fish were a riotous mixture of white, gold, black, red and orange and soon they had grown large and tame enough to accept tidbits of food from the hand.
Meanwhile, however, the girl had grown restless - she had wanted a dog but knew that the boy did not approve of them. Nevertheless, she applied pressure on him and he relented. He had even managed to work up some excitement when he saw the first pictures of the Husky and Malamute puppies that the girl had in mind.
Soon, two boy puppies were welcomed to their new home; a beautiful Austrian Sheepwolf-looking white husky puppy (who was given the name "Grendel" after his love of water), and a robust, plump, clumsy Malamute who was called "Okami", after the Japanese word for wolf. The puppies loved the faerie garden and grew rapidly, but the cracks soon started to appear.
The cats, who had been used to having the run of the property, were driven permanently inside in terror by the sheer rambunctious energy of the two young wolves. The dogs also loved swimming in the pond, and amongst the many other things that were destroyed in the faerie garden, the water lilies and other plants were soon torn to smithereens. What was a deal-breaker though, was that the water was green, fishy and natural, and the dogs always had a foetid, sour stink about them after a day's splashing and chasing after goldfish.
The battle lines were drawn - the girl insisted that the pond be turned back into a pool so that the dogs could have a clean place to cool off in the hot African summer heat.
Conceding defeat, the boy dutifully purchased a plastic pool to serve as a holding tank, and proceeded to drain the pond, caught the fish and transferred them to the holding pool. However, disaster struck! Despite his best efforts at preparing the water and making sure that it was safe to transfer the fish, all but two of the fish succumbed. The survivors were a large, plump, mottled red, orange-and-black shubunkin, and a pure blonde goldfish. Almost the entire school had been wiped out by a pair of Huskies, in a most unforeseen way! The dogs could not have achieved this massacre even had they spent all their energy trying to kill the fish.
The girl christened them "Thelma and Louise", and they found a new home in a three-foot aquarium on the kitchen counter. The pond never did get turned into a pool again, water restrictions prohibited a refill and the boy was too upset by the loss to care anymore.
Months passed, resentment over the animals festered, the cracks in the relationship deepened and eventually the girl fled, leaving the boy alone with the echoes of a former life and many deep and terrible secrets that were clawing their way to the surface. In his despair, he took Thelma and Louise and released them into the foot-and-a-half of rainwater that had collected in the pond, and wished them Godspeed.
His plans for his own future were dark and with terrible, final purpose.
But it was not to be. One cold autumn morning, the boy found himself numbly floating through the mist-shawled garden like a ghost, and came upon the pond. To his astonishment, the water was teeming with tiny fry - Thelma and Louise's offspring! After the many months spent in an aquarium, their release into the pond, shallow as it was at the time, had prompted their biological natures into that most atavistic drive - procreation!
Thelma, but not Louise. Louis!
Today, the boy is no longer the man he was, and sits by the pond every day to gaze upon the fishy muses in the depths and draw strength and inspiration from their ordeal. The pond is teeming with nearly two hundred four-inch long goldfish (not to mention mom and dad!), and it's a bit of a problem. But, the fish are not fed, they survive very well in the green water on a diet of insects, larvae and algae. Every now and again one succumbs to the predations of a bored cat or a fishing bird, but that is both good and right.
They have all discovered their Godspeed.
An old clapper of a house in need of plenty of love and attention, but it had a magical arboreal faerie garden and beautiful sunset views. In among the rocks, trees and scrub of the garden, their cats frolicked and hunted each other in playful warfare.
The garden also had a small swimming pool, and the boy, never having liked the idea of a sterile, chlorine-bleached money pit, decided that it would be much better if the pool was turned into a pond, with birds, fish and green life that blended in with the unspoiled natural surroundings of the garden.
The powered machinery of the pool was duly switched off, and as the months went by, aquatic plants like water lilies, rushes and iris were added. The water gained a more natural hue, with bird-life and insects flocking in their numbers to this oasis. It was ready for the next step. The boy soon visited a pet shop, and selected fourteen plain juvenile goldfish, those that are known as "feeder goldfish" in the marine aquarium trade. These were taken to their new home and lovingly released into their new habitat.
They thrived! The fish were a riotous mixture of white, gold, black, red and orange and soon they had grown large and tame enough to accept tidbits of food from the hand.
Meanwhile, however, the girl had grown restless - she had wanted a dog but knew that the boy did not approve of them. Nevertheless, she applied pressure on him and he relented. He had even managed to work up some excitement when he saw the first pictures of the Husky and Malamute puppies that the girl had in mind.
Soon, two boy puppies were welcomed to their new home; a beautiful Austrian Sheepwolf-looking white husky puppy (who was given the name "Grendel" after his love of water), and a robust, plump, clumsy Malamute who was called "Okami", after the Japanese word for wolf. The puppies loved the faerie garden and grew rapidly, but the cracks soon started to appear.
The cats, who had been used to having the run of the property, were driven permanently inside in terror by the sheer rambunctious energy of the two young wolves. The dogs also loved swimming in the pond, and amongst the many other things that were destroyed in the faerie garden, the water lilies and other plants were soon torn to smithereens. What was a deal-breaker though, was that the water was green, fishy and natural, and the dogs always had a foetid, sour stink about them after a day's splashing and chasing after goldfish.
The battle lines were drawn - the girl insisted that the pond be turned back into a pool so that the dogs could have a clean place to cool off in the hot African summer heat.
Conceding defeat, the boy dutifully purchased a plastic pool to serve as a holding tank, and proceeded to drain the pond, caught the fish and transferred them to the holding pool. However, disaster struck! Despite his best efforts at preparing the water and making sure that it was safe to transfer the fish, all but two of the fish succumbed. The survivors were a large, plump, mottled red, orange-and-black shubunkin, and a pure blonde goldfish. Almost the entire school had been wiped out by a pair of Huskies, in a most unforeseen way! The dogs could not have achieved this massacre even had they spent all their energy trying to kill the fish.
The girl christened them "Thelma and Louise", and they found a new home in a three-foot aquarium on the kitchen counter. The pond never did get turned into a pool again, water restrictions prohibited a refill and the boy was too upset by the loss to care anymore.
Months passed, resentment over the animals festered, the cracks in the relationship deepened and eventually the girl fled, leaving the boy alone with the echoes of a former life and many deep and terrible secrets that were clawing their way to the surface. In his despair, he took Thelma and Louise and released them into the foot-and-a-half of rainwater that had collected in the pond, and wished them Godspeed.
His plans for his own future were dark and with terrible, final purpose.
But it was not to be. One cold autumn morning, the boy found himself numbly floating through the mist-shawled garden like a ghost, and came upon the pond. To his astonishment, the water was teeming with tiny fry - Thelma and Louise's offspring! After the many months spent in an aquarium, their release into the pond, shallow as it was at the time, had prompted their biological natures into that most atavistic drive - procreation!
Thelma, but not Louise. Louis!
Today, the boy is no longer the man he was, and sits by the pond every day to gaze upon the fishy muses in the depths and draw strength and inspiration from their ordeal. The pond is teeming with nearly two hundred four-inch long goldfish (not to mention mom and dad!), and it's a bit of a problem. But, the fish are not fed, they survive very well in the green water on a diet of insects, larvae and algae. Every now and again one succumbs to the predations of a bored cat or a fishing bird, but that is both good and right.
They have all discovered their Godspeed.
