Killing Nemo

 I was engaged in a thoroughly innocent and blameless activity that did not at all involve bloodstained altars and polished human skulls when I received a priority message from my tech support.  Pausing only to mop the worst of the evidence off my face and hands I opened the link so their visual surveillance of me was official rather than surreptitious.

"What can I do for you guys?" I asked, a little nervously it has to be admitted.

"Are you busy?" they asked, "we can wait until you've finished whatever the hell it is you're doing."

"Just killing time," I assured them.  Not strictly accurate but time was certainly one of things I was killing.

 "Fine, we need you to do something about your Tasmanian correspondent."

 "Why me?" I groaned.  "You're the ones with the space based particle weapons.  What's she getting up to now?"

"We have it on good authority that she's planning to buy more goldfish."

This was certainly terrible news for the goldfish species.  My Tasmanian correspondent was the piscine equivalent of the grim reaper.  At one point she was flushing so many dead goldfish down the toilet it almost blocked Tasmania's entire sewage system to say nothing of making the place look like a temple for some dark goldfish sacrifice obssessed god (don't laugh, there is such a god.  I can give you a link to his facebook page if you like but its pretty boring).  What I didn't understand why my tech support was so concerned.

"Fish stocks around the world are dangerously depleted," they explained.

"Because of you."

"Yes, but she's not helping, besides the people of Belarus love goldfish."

"Really, as pets?"

"No, as added protein.  Can you ask her to stop?"

"I can ask her whatever you like," I sighed, "OK, I'll have a word with her.  In the meantime can you get back to sorting out this entire coronavirus mess?"

"How often do we have to apologise for that?"

"Let's start with once."

I severed the connection and put into a call to my Tasmanian correspondent.  She greeted me with suspicious expectation.

"That pack of fifth rate cyber criminals told you about the goldfish didn't they?"

Which at least helped me broach the subject delicately.  I had to admit that I was a little surprised that she was getting back into the goldfish rearing game.  After the last series of fatalities she seemed to have acknowledged that the writing was on the wall and that the writing had been executed in goldfish blood.

Things, however had changed.  As I mentioned in this blog some time ago she had taken over the "care" of a bunch of large goldfish from a friend who was travelling interstate.  They were kept outside in a bathtub as part of an aquaculture feature.  She got eight of them several months ago and her care has been so diligent that there are still seven left.  What happened to the eighth is unknown but there was a large bird hovering around her home whose actions were of interest.  Sadly an interrogation will be impossible because the bird in question rapidly met canine vengeance which at least gave my correspondent something different to flush down the toilet.

Still, the unexpected survival of a significant number of fish has so encouraged my correspondent that she is intending to purchase more and place them in a tank in her office.  Nothing I could say would dissuade her from purchasing more goldfish at the earliest opportunity.  Shamelessly she played the children card; her daughters were excited about getting goldfish and were eagerly awaiting the opportunity to select the next victims.  I had to agree that it was good to get children familiar with the penultimate stage of the circle of life at as early an age as possible.  By the time these kids leave home they'll be convinced that the lifespan of a goldfish is fifteen minutes at best.

The only concession I could get her to make to address the concerns of my tech support was a promise that after their inevitable death rather than flush them down the toilet she would send them in a food parcel to Belarus.  To sweeten the pot she offered to throw in some home made tartar sauce as well.