Dead

[farla]

My beta died. I'm glad, actually. He'd stopped eating a few days ago (half not being interested and half not having the coordination to reach the food) and was barely moving. Every day I woke up I'd walk over and see him dead - because he'd be slumped over in some corner, not moving. I kept prodding him back onto the rocks so he wouldn't drown, and after a little while he couldn't even manage that - when I pushed him he'd squirm along his side on the bottom of the tank. Then I started moving him myself, and had to keep checking on him because he'd slide off and couldn't get back up near the air. I was trying to decide how I was going to kill him, because I didn't want him to starve or drown, but didn't want to hurt him either. But he died on his own before I had to do any of that.

He lived to a good age for a pet beta. I still have gnawing guilt that he didn't live to a good age for a beta, but at least I did what I could. At least, he didn't die of starvation, or drowning, or illness, or cold. And at least he lived for a few years instead of dying in a little plastic cup at the pet store.