It Was a Strange Morning

It was a strange morning; it started when I was chased from my bed and my room by a spider. The creepy thing was on the ceiling and he was racing to the spot directly above my head. I dove from under the sheet and grabbed up a shoe to use as a weapon, but found that I just didn’t have the courage to use it. The spider seeing my hesitation, hastily changed directions and again raced for the part of the ceiling above me; it was at this moment that I made what turned out to be a fortuitous decision to leave my room and spend the morning outside.

Once safely in the great wilderness of my roughly 120’ by 100’ back yard, I was able to release the weapon (shoe) that I had carried with me from my bedroom, and take in the scenery. What I saw made my heart leap in my chest.

In my wonderful yard I have two Koi ponds; one is 3000 gallons and the other a measly 500 gallons. Well last night my son and nephew worked hard to catch the 15 fish and assorted frogs and tadpoles from the large pond and place them in the dinky little five hundred gallon puddle. This had to be done in order for us to drain and make repairs. Needless to say the large koi don’t care much for the small pond. When I relaxed enough to look at my ponds I noticed that all but one of the large koi were lined up at the edge of the pond as though they were watching something on the lawn; and they were.

There in the grass, about five feet from the water was the largest of my koi. Eighteen inches of black and gold lying there dry and looking for all the world like a mounted trophy on a field of green. I rushed to him and quickly snatched him from the lawn tossing him back into the water; thinking about the Oscar that was dry and stiff after spending hours on the carpet yet revived after being placed in water. The koi splashed into the pond and abruptly returned to the top on his side. I noticed that one gill was barely moving, so I leaned over the pond pulled him close to the edge and began resuscitation (no not mouth to mouth; Yuck!), by moving him back and forth and wiggling him just a bit. I figured a little motion to get the water moving through him couldn’t hurt.

It was while I was kneeling at the edge of the pond trying to get a dead fish to swim that I notice now all the koi were within inches of my hands all staring at their friend. I spent almost an hour trying to revive the koi. His gills began to move in a regular but weak fashion and his mouth began to do that gulping motion that they do. But every time I let go of him back onto his side he went. I didn’t know what I was going to do, I knew I couldn’t stay there all day to keep him upright; so I glanced around to see if there was something I could use to help. It was then that I noticed the waterfall was not running so much as trickling; 15 large koi and several frogs and tadpoles added to the five fish already in the pond naturally overloaded the pump.

I let go of my patient long enough to hurry into the house and wake my nephew, who came quickly to help. He cleaned the filter and soon the waterfall was flowing and with the addition of good clean oxygen to the water my patient recovered quickly. I was able after just a few more minutes to let go and he remained upright. It was then that the other koi surrounded him, each swimming close to his head and taking turns as though they were visiting a good friend in the hospital.
When the revived koi finally attempted to swim, the two next largest fish accompanied him; one on each side as though helping to support him in his first steps after such a dreadful accident. I spent the rest of the morning seated near the ponds watching, as the koi kept close watch on their friend. Not once through the morning was he left alone; there was at least one koi with him at all times. By mid-morning the revived koi was swimming without difficulty and traversing the small pond with the others following.

Not many of my fish have names. We have “Target” a white koi with a perfect orange circle on his side, and “lips” a white with orange lips. Then there is “Keiko” black and white marked just like an orca. Now we have “Lazarus”.

This afternoon when I finally returned to my bedroom, I found that spider exactly where I expected to find him; resting comfortably on my pillow. I screamed a little and pointed and Merlin my protector pounced with all of his 150 pounds of canine muscle onto the spider smashing him neatly into the pillow case. It’s time to buy a new pillow.