People seem to think I'm a whiney bastard who is always in a bad mood anymore.

And they're right.

I have this very weird philosophy that if I were in a good mood all of the time and then something bad happened that devestated my life, the impact would be twice as harsh. On the opposite side of that spectrum, if I were in a shitty mood all of the time, when something good happened to me, the rewards from it would seem twice as sweet.

That's gotta' make sense to somebody. I know it does. Fuck all of the naysayers.

Frank used to make me happy.

Did I ever tell you guys about Frank?

Well, for Christmas I got a fish tank from my sister. I looked up at her and said, "What is this for?" And she just looked at me evenly and said, "It's for fish."

Fair enough.

So I waited and waited and waited... and finally... I bought a fish.

He was a black moor. He was about 3 inches long. His name was Frank.

Frank almost seemed to have selected himself for me. I work at the Pets department of Walmart (One of my shitty jobs I will no doubt eventually lose), so I have free reign to get whatever fish I want by myself. I decided to get a black moor.

I dipped the net down into the tank, and low and behold, one of the little fuckers swam right up to the net, almost as if he was like, "What's going on over here?" He then proceeded to float into my net. I scooped him up and put him in the bag gently. This was Frank.

On the ride home, Frank more or less started freaking out. He began digging his nose into the bag, and swimming erratically. If I didn't know any better, I would've said that Frank was drunk. But fish don't drink. They sip.

So I was trying to find ways of calming him down, holding him up so the bag wouldn't fall over and leave him flopping around on my front seat. And this wasn't easy, considering there was a new layer of ice on the ground, so manuvering with one hand through the ice wasn't easy. But luckily enough, my social life has been so poor, that I've pretty much mastered one-handed manuvering.

Finally I turned on some music, thinking the vibrations would settle him down. I had the soundtrack to "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" in, which means it consisted of 80's music. As the music started, Frank stopped ramming his head into the corner of the bag. He just floated there for a minute and listened. And then the damnedest thing happened.

Frank started to dance.

Not dance in the literal sense of course, but dance in the water ballet sort of way fish move. He would glide from one side of the bag to the next, expertly making turns, then diving down to the bottom of the bag, stopping right before he hit the bottom, only to swim right back to the top. But nothing was erratic about it. It was very graceful. His body seemed to move in time with the music. Every new song would bring about a new dance. It was the most amazing thing that ever happened. I knew that deep down, in some psychological sense, Frank and I had connected. That we understood each other a little better. That we were going to be friends forever.

That night, I put him into his tank and just sat there in my bed looking at him. And Frank just looked back at me. He didn't seem to be condescending me. He didn't seem to be judging me. He was just looking back at him. And I started thinking, do fish have any concept of what a friend is? I know they know about families and schooling together and all of that... but do they understand the concept of friendship?

I don't know if Frank understood me or not, but I would talk to Frank. And Frank would just listen to me. Occasionally, he swim to the bottom of the tank, suck on a rock looking for food, but he would always swim back up and look at me. And it wasn't just because he was hungry either. I fed him on a regular basis, like clockwork, never missed it. And Frank would just grab some food, swallow it, then go back to looking at me, leaving other bits of food behind.

In the mornings, I would wake up and sit up in bed and look at Frank. And Frank would get excited and start swimming around a little. But he would always stop himself and look back. It was weird, but it made me feel good. It made me feel good that every morning somebody looked forward to seeing me. And I looked forward to seeing him.

A week later, Frank started acting funny. He began jerking around while he swam. If he had swam like a ballet dancer before, now he was dancing like a one-legged drunk with no sense of rythym. He would jerk his body back and forth, struggling to stay afloat. I was concerned to say the least.

I ran to the store and picked up some antibiotics, and even did a little research while I was there in the notes we kept in case any of the fish got sick.

The only thing I saw that even closely related to Frank's problem was that certain types of goldfish, when they go up to eat flakes floating in the water at the top, they gulp in air. This air makes their balance a little off. So maybe all Frank had was fishy gas. It made sense. And I started to feel a little relieved.

I rushed home and gave him the antibiotics (Well... more like I dropped the tab in his tank to dissolve... it's not like you can spoon-feed a fish or stick a hypo in it) and just waited. I hope that maybe all it was was a little gas. Maybe he would be all right. I knew he had to be all right. Because we had connected. We were friends. And friends just don't do that to other friends.

I know it may be hard for some of you to understand how I was feeling at the time. Most of you think I'm crazy to get attached to a little fish like that. Well, fish or not, Frank was still a part of my life. He wasn't just my friend, but he was also my responsibility. And if he died, it would be my fault. And that would've just crushed me, knowing that I had let my friend down, and that he had died because of errors in my judgement. I don't have a lot of friends. I have family, but we don't communicate very well. Sometimes we just downright hate each other. Maybe I was just making up for some lack of company in my life. But Frank was important to me.

I woke up early the next morning and sat up in my bed. I kept my eyes shut, hoping that he would be okay. Slowly, I opened my eyes, and I looked at Frank.

But for the first time... Frank never looked back.