One little fishie in a little bitty pool

      It is certainly not large, but for one middling sized goldfish you would think it’d be just fine. His even smaller friend passed away last winter so he couldn’t possibly feel crowded! I mean, after all, if what I’ve heard is correct a fish's memory is so short that by the time it gets from one side of whatever it’s been given as a home it’s forgotten what the other side looks like. It doesn’t even know it just came from there. Sooo every move it makes is filled with adventure. Fish don’t suffer from memory loss, because they never had a memory function in the first place. I wonder if that’s good or bad. (No, I will not go there, my head hurts already, and it was only a thought!)
     Anyway, our little goldfish must have been having a nightmare or something, and decided it didn’t want to be a fish any longer - living in water that was either frozen in the winter or too hot in the summer - and for some reason had gotten it into its head that he would rather be a bird. In his erratic somnambulant state he obviously believed that his fins had become wings. Eager to prove this hypothesis he flew from his watery home, and sailed heavenward into the blue. Unfortunately, a fatal case of sleep swimming. 
     Whatever the reason or cause little bitty fishie was found, by my wife, Janet, lying still and seemingly lifeless approximately 3 feet from his home tub. 
     I had been watching the fish about 5 minutes earlier as it swam around in its pretty little home, appreciating its golden/orange body’s underwater antics. I then moved away to inspect some rose or other. Janet, a moment later, sauntered over to stand at the glass patio door and gaze at the sea, and garden -always a delightful view. As she took in the sparkle of the sun glancing off the wave tips a glint of orange from a spot near the fish's tub caught her eye; there on the patio floor lay her beloved little goldfish; a sad quick end to its attempt at flight; or had it been a bid to make his escape to the sea, some 60 odd feet away? Poor lonely, little creature, it had no one to tell him that there truly is no place like home.      At this point one might imagine him being gently lifted, mourned, and then interred in a shallow grave, beneath a beautiful rose. His passing nobly enriching another life form. But that would not be. It was not in the cards that he should become another’s compost (well not at this point). He was gently lifted - by me - and mourned. We’d had him for nearly 6 years, and were most upset because the little tyke had only the year before narrowly missed death when he was inadvertently (his tub being cleaned) left in a water collecting barrel beneath a drain pipe. He had spent 5 months, surviving we know not how, being whooshed around by heavy rains from the many fierce storms that had raged that winter. To come to this after that was truly too cruel.
     We gazed in sorrow at the little thing, lying still, and forlorn, his golden sheen drying in the open air, his gills no longer filtering water when his tail suddenly flicked up, and down. It was startling to say the least; he must have been out of his tub 4 or 5 minutes, but I took it as some last death contraction which caused it. I decided anyway to put him back in the water, and was about to do so when a sudden rise and fall, as though he had taken a deep breath, lifted his small frame. Carefully lowering my hand into the tub, careful not to make a quick movement, I held him firmly but gently, waiting to see if what had taken place was simply an aberration of some sort or if it truly was alive, and had survived such a lengthy time out of its natural habitat.
     I began to squeeze his body, very conscious that I could do him injury if he were coming back from the dead, and began an in and out compression in hopes that it might help. Suddenly a large bubble came from its mouth, and he began that gulping thing fish do. He was soon gulping and gulping away, and a moment later began wiggling around inside my semi-closed hand. When I unclenched it he slowly, and groggily swam away. 
     Our little fish was alive! Janet and I looked at each other in stunned amazement. It took a while, but he finally began swimming with his usual vigor around the tub. By the next day he was eating and acting no differently than before his resurrection. Now all as it was, and we have our little bitty fishie back with us.
     Oh! And he has gained a name after all these years; one we feel suits him perfectly – Lazarus!