goldfish die easily

last week i bought six goldfish for an image. goldfish, in mason jars, lit from beneath. shot in black and white, stuttered so that the fish jerk unnaturally about their little glass homes.
one of the fish was dead by the next morning. another died the following day. and two more died the day after.
so now i am short four fish. it's a good thing that they only cost twelve cents.
more importantly, i keep watching the world slide by and wondering where i belong. the drapes are pulled tight because the light hurts my eyes and i fear i am going blind.
there is pattern to everything in life, but it is all interconnected... i don't know that i am able to isolate anything specific. there is a pattern to the way that the colours swell and burst at sunrise, and then fade away and fold in upon themselves at sunset. a pattern to the growth of the grass and to the movement of the clouds. most people are simply unaware of it, or choose not to notice that they are part of the pattern. 

many years ago, when i was quite small, a woodpecker drilled a hole in the outside wall of my bedroom. the woodpecker quickly abandoned the hole, and it was taken over by starlings. by all rights, i ought not like starlings. they are a non-native species, they crowd out the native species, they are dirty, they are loud. but i adore them. their proud iridescent black plumage, their haughty gaze, the way that they teach their young to pick out the best of the apples rotting on the ground beneath the apple tree. for as long as i can remember, they have lived in my wall. tucked between the intact drywall and the outerwall, nested in among the insulation. every year they raise a family, sometimes two. many generations have passed through that nesting hole, i am sure. they have returned to the same spot so many times that i think, should they not be in my wall, i would not be able to sleep at all. they have always had a somewhat raucous cry, not quite that of a crow, but still not a pleasant sound. however, i know that they, like many birds, can learn to imitate many other sounds. i have heard of starlings imitating car alarms and children laughing and dogs barking. but my starlings never had, until i heard one last week. imitating the ring of my cell phone.