It was not a choice the old man wanted to make, but the child stayed at school and met his obligations to complete another deskbound year indoors.  The old man knew that the aquarium had to be purchased and he and the young boy made the arduous trek to FiveDock and acquired through the exchange of money and knowing looks, one 75 litre tank, light, filter, heater, flat box stand, some water plants and two or three plastic bags of washed quartz gravel.

He loaded the burden in the back of his old Subaru cart and set off some five kilometres to his house on the road that bordered the golf course.  The man was poor and could only afford to live on the side of the road that did not back onto the links.

He set the tank in the corner of the old man’s family room.  It was filled with surprisingly alkaline tap water.  The old man added water ager to remove the chlorine he knew would be toxic to the fish – peeling off their slime coats and allowing the dreaded fin rot to take hold.  He added a few caps-full of cloudy liquid alleged by the aquarium keeper to contain the bacteria necessary to turn fish waste nitrites into plant food nitrates.

The old man balanced the pH, sat down heavily in his Jason Recliner, carefully unscrewed the top from a stubbie of Boag’s Light beer and surveyed his handiwork with some small amount of pride.

They would wait a week for the tank to settle down, the plants to adjust to their new environment and they would take the time to survey the catalogue of tropical fish exotica to satisfy the boy’s insatiable and transient thirst for the novel.

The old man had been here before in his own youth.  He knew the mysteries of domestic recreational aquaculture and he felt in the pit of his stomach the anticipated dread of sharing his family room with the life and death struggle about to overtake their lives.  The boy scanned the catalogue and selected his fish.  The old man fingered where his beard had been and began to plan his escape.

The boy wanted more fish than could fit in the confines of 75 litres, less room for gravel, plants, the heater and a late purchase of a Halong Bay style polymer rock intended to offer sanctuary for the weaker fish who were about to dance the dance of the liquid jungle.  Death in the afternoon.

The old man encouraged the boy to consider smaller fish with bright colours, to allow them to school in the confines of the tank.  The boy insisted on variety of shape and form.  Across the old man’s weather beaten face flickered a look of knowing apprehension.

They agreed that a couple of Bronze Catfish would provide the colony with a useful garbage collection service.  The boy compromised on small schools of Neon Tetras and, Zebra Danios.  The old man allowed a few Swords and a pair of Gouramis.  The boy agreed to a few Mollies and Guppies.

The fish were introduced into the tank in the time-honoured way of floating the sealed plastic bags in the water to allow the temperatures to equilibrate and then the tank and bag waters were allowed to mix slowly so that the fish would not be shocked.  The boy knew that the old man was wise in the ways of home aquaria since the days of his own youth.

For a moment the boy gazed as the fish began to explore the reaches of the tank, but soon he was distracted and turned his attention to the Nintendo game paying itself on the large screen LCD.  That was his last engagement with the aquatic domain.

The old man grew weary of the boy’s indifference to the demands of maintaining the tank.  The pH began to fall.  There was the occasional dead fish to be scooped out.  The algae began to cast its verdant hue over the Perspex.  The old man grew restive with the boy’s indifference and confronted him one morning over a breakfast of cereal.  The old man’s weather-beaten hand stirred and poked the Weetbix with low fat soy milk over sliced banana and one or two strawberries the old man had found in a plastic punnet in the fridge.  He baited the boy by asking him whether he had totally lost interest in the living creatures in the family room.

“They’re fucking boring”, said the boy.”They’re all the same.  Boring little fish.  I want something bigger and more interesting”.

The old man was forced to admit to himself that the boy had a point.  There was a sameness about the little fish that, in the absence of acute observation of the different species’ forms and behaviours, could lead the boy to that conclusion.  They agreed to go back to the aquarium specialist and seek his advice.

The old man should have foreseen this as the thin edge of the wedge.

The old man acceded to the boy’s relentless demands and bought a pair of Angel Fish.  Not an exact pair.  The male was slightly bigger than the female.

The Angels were larger than all the other fish in the home aquarium.  They had a stately bearing and hovered regally about the tank, navigating like submarine sailing boats.  The old man thought they had settled into their new home well.

Some days later the old man wondered whether there were as many Neons as he had purchased.  He was not sure.  It was difficult to tell.  They were hard to count.  Was there nineteen or twenty ?  Was it his imagination ?