Space Fish

It all started eight years ago, I can't believe it's been eight already. It's been eight years since they took me out of that tank in that horrible pet store and put me on a rocket with the humans blasting off to Mars. It happened like this:

One hot summer day, I was swimming in my tank with the other fish like usual. The other fish and I never talk, we just sit there in the freezing cold water waiting for what ever might happen to us. Like every day there were little kids putting their dirty ugly faces against the glass making it foggy and so kindly letting us unable to see out of. Other than early in the morning before the kids came and before the shop opened we could never see what happened. Sometimes there was a man who came and took us away one by one. No one knows where he takes the fish, we all think that they die or are being used for science or something, but no one really knows. The man usually comes every day to our tank, usually only taking one but sometimes more. I just hoped that today was not my day. Although it was a boring life living in my tank with no one to talk to and no one to love me or to play with, I still loved my life, and I wouldn't give it away for anything.

Then that morning the man who takes us away came to our tank. He tried to picked me up but I escaped by swimming to the corner of our tank and hiding under the big rock with a hole in the middle of it. Then he walked away. I was safe! I turned my back to the front of the tank because I was trying to get out of the rock and then the next thing I knew I was in a bag like I had seen him do to all of the other fish that were taken before me. I have to admit it was really scary. None of the fish in the tank knew what happened once you left, but we all knew that we would leave one by one, never to be seen again. I was terrified.

The man handed me to a woman and she put me in her car. We drove for hours while she blasted music. This was a big and unexpected change for me. I mean, I knew I would leave one day but I didn't know that it would be like this. Will we stay in this car forever?

After a while the car stopped and she got out. She came around to the passenger side, where I was sitting in my plastic bag and took me inside a huge building. There were lots of people and rooms inside of the building, but she took me to what seemed to be the smallest room and put me in something that looked like what the hamsters used to run in back at the pet store, but a little bit bigger. It had something which I guessed to be an air filter at the top so that I could breath. I sat in that bowl for a day, they were nice to me and fed me food that I had never tasted before.

The next morning someone picked me and the bowl with the air filter up and put me in this sort of big metal tube thing. I could hear the humans calling it a rocket but I had no idea what that was at the time. There were three humans with me, in the so called "rocket". Just as I was beginning to gather my surroundings a strange loud voice boomed over what I think was a speaker. It started counting backwards from 10. "10...9...8...". When it got to one I jolted forward along with the humans. I was so confused, all I wanted was to go back to the fish tank in the pet store. This was a huge change that I was not ready for at all, but I had to get used to it.

We were in the "rocket" for years. I lost track of time but my humans didn't. They said that it had been 4 years. I also heard them talking about how this new space craft was like at the speed of light or something. I don't really understand all that human nonsense even to this day.

Anyway, after a few more years we landed on a planet called Mars. I was so confused. I mean, there are other planets other than earth! I had a sudden love for the stars and the planets. It was really helpful to pick up knowledge from the humans, whom turned out to be surprisingly smart. In our tank we were positive that fish were the smartest beings on the earth. Those clams were not the brightest.

We lived in the rocket, but they took me out with them to explore the planet. There was a lot of dust and big holes in the ground. The planet was also an orange color which was way different than earth. I think I liked it here because there were not little dirty children, and no adults to put you in plastic bags. I finally felt free even though I was in my fish bowl that looked like a hamster ball.

After a while the people started working and building things. They started with little houses, which looked like nothing compared to the ones back on earth. They were tiny and only one human and I could fit in one. They did lots of experiments and tried planting things and looking for stuff on Mars.

The people who built the little houses and came on the space ship with me are still living on Mars with me and we all seem to be doing pretty well. Who knows, maybe one day they will bring another fish to Mars. Maybe even other animals!

From the day that I rode in that loud car and got onto that space shuttle until the day that I die and maybe even after my death, I will be referred to as Space Fish - the first fish ever to survive in space. Although it was a big change, I see the good in it now, and I will be remembered for ages to come.