Imagine being a wee fishie; - I know that might be hard but go on, have a try. You're a wee water beastie that is happily swimming around in your tank, using your gills to extract oxygen from the water you're in - without that water you cannot breathe. Then imagine that (for some reason - curiosity maybe) you suddenly get the urge to flick your tail and leap away from the aqueous comfort zone you've known all your life. After that everything goes awry as you realise that there's no water in sight and instead you are flailing through the air to land splat in a big pile of dirt.

 

This is what happened to Sparkle. We don't know what lead to his misadventure but when he decided to go for a wee jump, he landed outside of his bowl. A few hours later, his owners were sad to discover that Sparkle was no longer in the water with his un-named companion. They quickly got over this loss, however, and went to the pet shop to buy a new goldfish.

 

When the man at the store told them that Sparkle may have actually jumped out of his bowl, Sparkle's owners said "Huh" and moseyed on home. After 7 hours they finally got round to looking behind the chest of drawers that the fish bowl sat on. To their shock and horror, little Sparkle the goldfish was lying there with no water to breath. Even a five year old would have figured that a little fishie would not have survived that long in such conditions; - no water, no food, no literature and lots and lots of dust and dog hair.

 

Sparkle's goldy goldenness was barely visible through all the muck and dirt coating his wee scales. In a minor act of inexplicable compassion, Miss Dunster (owner) took our protagonist fish to the sink and washed him clean rather than flush him down the toilet. To everybody's joy, Sparkle suddenly began making little pook pook motions with his little fish lips - he was alive!

 

 

Today, Sparkle still lives happily with his un-named companion in the same bowl that he tried to escape from although now, his owners keep a careful eye on his wanderlust.