Fish Circles

If ever there's a reason to pray fervently that reincarnation is fanciful thought, it is the fish I saw at Wal-Mart. This one, a tri-colored goldfish, cartwheeled in water in a plastic bag topped with a tightly twisted rubber band held by a young girl. The fish swished back and forth in vertical and horizontal circles. The child, squished into a lavendar leotard, pronounced in one, quick run-together sentence, "I'm four and I'm here with my cousin and my uncle and this is my fish and I'm taking him home with me and my mom doesn't know about it and I haven't named him yet cause I can't decide and do you like him?" She stopped moving the bag. The fish bounced off the side, mouthed silent fish gulps, then it was back to circles. The circles weren't wild ones, but the two-inch fish probably disagreed.  So did the uncle. He unpropped his large, sweatsuit clad frame from the customer service counter, swiveled around and told the little one to hold the fish still. Then he went back to what he was doing, which turned out to be getting a price correction on three cardboard boxes of videos. As the clerk adjusted the price on about 100 movies, the uncle apologized to Big Guy and I for making us wait and explained that he sells videos on the internet. That got my attention. I never thought about where those videos come from or who it is that sells them. Then my attention swung back to the fish, once again spinning. As I watched, the plastic bag slipped from the little girl's fingers and hit the floor. It didn't break. Call it good luck, bad luck or what goes around, comes around.