By Craig: They swim in circles around the cylindrical tank. They remind me of race cars driving around an oval track, yet there is a difference. Here, in their environment there is no finish line. They merely swim, swim and swim. They are predictable, instinctive creatures, flat silvery and some of them almost opaque. Their soulless eyes jut out from a concave face over a mouth that is shaped in a perpetual frown. They are the "Lookdown" a fish common to the Atlantic ocean and prized at aquariums all over the world for their distinctive, unique appearance. The Lookdown was first catalogued by the famed Swedish Naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the mid 18th century.
I first became acquainted with the Lookdown at the RiverBanks Zoo in Columbia South Carolina a number of years ago. A specimen here had lost one of its eyes. I could not help but notice how it had adapted to life without it. Not that there was anything that it could do about it. With one eye it swam just as straight, and just as powerful and graceful as its mates who had two. In fact, it did not seem the least bit concerned or inconvenienced by its loss. I wondered how it came to be...How did it lose its eye? Was it an accident of some kind? Did it accidentally scrape up against a coral reef? Did it have an encounter with some sort of aggressive fish that managed to the unfortunate Lookdown's eye before moving on to something else that attracted its attention? Did it have some sort of disease that caused the eye to become detached? Or was it simply born without it? Perhaps I am the only sick bastard interested in knowing this? Even the maimed creature itself was not in the least bit curious as to where it went, and was, in fact, unaware that there was even a problem.
Here I stood, now, a few years later at the Florida Aquarium in Tampa. My son standing next to me getting impatient as I gazed at the existential movements of the Lookdown fish that continually swam in circles around the tank. Man-like faces with their open melancholic mouths that turned down as if they possessed the ability to reason. I could not help but fancy that there were human spirits trapped inside these limited bodies, perhaps being punished for egregious offenses committed while living on Earth in human form. As I watched the movement of these fascinating creatures I suddenly became aware that one of them had stopped and turned towards me. Its sad, perpetual frown no longer in profile.
"Hello" It said. "Why do you insist on gawking at us? How would you like it if you were confined in a tank and forced to swim in circles for no other reason, apparently than to entertain greasy cheeseburger eating Americans like you!"
I was stunned. "I don't eat cheeseburgers!" I exclaimed, and then added with a haughty arrogance. "In fact, I run marathons!"
"Well whoopee for you, you obnoxious soon to be non entity!" It responded.
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
"Well, will it really matter that you ran a marathon a million years from now when your name and everything associated with you will have been eradicated from memory and consciousness?"
I thought about this logic, and, well, he had a point.
"Still" I said. "I am like every other creature on this planet, I live according to the dictates of my nature, and my nature is to survive, avoid pain, be happy and, well...I guess stave off death for as long as possible."
"Now you are getting somewhere!" The Lookdown said cheerfully, once again moving to a position in the tank where I observed it in classic profile.
"Do you know who I am?" The Lookdown asked thoughtfully.
I was puzzled by this question. "You are a Lookdown fish." I said confidently.
"Yea...Yea, but that's not what I have always been."
I was intrigued. "Well then, who are you?"
"I, my good sir am none other than, Rene Robert Chevalier Poo Poo Du Gascon ! The former Abbe of St. Louis the Pius in Paris France. I lost my head on the guillotine on the 9th of Thermidor 1793. I was treacherously betrayed by a young lady, Madame Renault, who accused me of taking advantage of her naïve disposition."
"What did you?" I asked with genuine interest.
"Well, uh...I sort of seduced her in the confessional box."
"I see." I said. "So how is it that you have come to be a Lookdown fish?"
"That, my good sir is the million dollar question! But I have not always been brought back as a Lookdown fish. Embarrassingly enough, in one of my lives I came back as a blowfly. This was so humiliating that I immediately sought out a restaurant where I could make a pest of myself. I found a willing waiter who obliged my suicide request via a fly swatter. Thus ended that mortifying experience!"
I nodded. "so how did you end up becoming a Lookdown fish?"
"I do not know! But I do know that I am not the only Lookdown that was human at one time. Do you see that rather bloated looking chap with the guilty expression?"
Gascon directed his melancholic mouth toward a rather large Lookdown who I could have sworn stole a glance in my direction as it passed by.
"That, my friend is none other than Pope Clement VI! You know...The Pope who sat between the two fires to ward off the black death! A lot of good it did him! Ah Ha! Do you see that rather small impish looking rascal near the top of the tank?"
"I see! I see! And who might that be?" I asked.
"That, is Her Royal Highness Marie Antoinette!"
I laughed. "Well I guess she no longer has to worry about letting the people eat cake! Say, are all these Lookdowns French or what?
Gascon snickered. "Absolutely not! In fact, There are more Americans in this tank than any other! Why look who is passing as I speak...It is John D. Rockefeller and Henry Pullman, a couple of capitalist knaves!
Just then my son pulled at my arm.
"Dad, this is boring! Let's go see the Great White Sharks!"
Distracted I turned back to the tank but the great Rene Robert Chevalier Poo Poo Du Gascon had disappeared. I watched the Lookdown fish swim by and wondered if I had just dreamed everything. As we walked away I stole one last glance at the Lookdown tank. The fish swimming as nature dictated, and swimming and swimming until one day they would swim no more.
