Before I even met my roommate for the first time, she told me that she was going to bring a fish to college to be our, if you may, third roommate. Of course I didn’t mind, because fish don’t typically smell or take up much room. She happily put her fish, named Calypso, above our dresser and he seemed to be happy (as happy as a beta fish can be, that is).

Since he was my roommate’s fish, I never really did much for him, except maybe feed him when she was gone for the weekend. As time went on, he started to get really comfortable at the bottom of the tank, and only swam up when he was fed. I started to get worried about him and voiced my worries to my roommate, but she reassured me that he was fine.

Next thing I know it’s touring week at Gustavus, and while I had made the decision to stay on campus, my roommate went home. She left me in charge of her fish and told me to feed him once a day and keep his filter on and he should be fine. She made a joke to me to make sure not to kill her fish, which I laughed off, thinking that it would be really hard for me to manage that.

The Monday of touring week I fed him and went about my business. I noticed that he hadn’t moved from his little spot amongst the rocks that night, but I brushed it off because he usually didn’t move anyway.

I finally decided that the fish probably hadn’t moved in a while by Wednesday, when I went to feed him and there was a piece of food sitting on his face. With a plastic butter knife I borrowed from one of my friends I prodded him, only to discover that he was in fact dead.

At first I almost thought about leaving him there until my roommate got back because I didn’t want to admit that my roommate’s beloved pet had kicked the bucket under my care. The fish was old and the fact that he died while she was gone was most likely my fault, I still felt pretty horrible that she wasn’t here for it. My friends suggested that I just buy her a new fish and not tell her, but in the end I texted her and told her the truth.

My roommate told me that she didn’t blame me, but she still wanted me to give him a funeral. As requested, we had a ceremony, in the 2nd floor bathroom in our dorm, playing Taylor Swift as I said a few words in his honor, before flushing him down the toilet. It was a beautiful ceremony. I wrote a eulogy on the whiteboard on the outside of my door, something Calypso would have wanted. Though he wasn’t cuddly like a dog or a cat, he was still a good pet, and a good fish.

Once my roommate got back from break she joked about how I had murdered her fish and that nothing could fill the void in her heart that Calypso once filled. I felt bad, but the next thing I knew she walked through the door holding a new, more lively and more beautiful fish named F. Scott Fishgerald. A very fitting name for a fish that lived with 2 english majors.

I would recommend having a fish because it's always nice to have some kind of pet and it's easier to get in the dorms than a dog, but just be prepared for it's short life span. Death comes at the most shocking of times.