I dreamt about my roommate's
three fish. She's had the
tank in the kitchen so I could feed them while she was on
vacation a month ago, and has yet to move it out. The water was
dirty so I decided to clean it out. I filled a small
goldfish bowl with water (the round kind you throw
ping-pong balls into at
carnivals) and moved them into it. They swam around
frantically, so I sprinkled some
fish food into the bowl, also dropping in a chunk of
raw fish.
The food didn't calm them any, and soon I began to panic thinking that they're gonna run out of oxygen since it's such a small bowl. I put some dark cheesecloth-type material over the bowl thinking that darkness would calm their pace, and I take out two more bowls. One I leave on the side, and the other I start filling up at the sink.
As I'm adjusting the water temperature, one of the fish jumps out of the bowl, covered in the cheesecloth, and lands in the other bowl. I notice that the raw fish is gone, and that as it lands in the other bowl, it eats the cheesecloth in one gulp. It's now overstuffed, but it's also sitting in an empty bowl and can't breathe so it starts flip-flopping frantically. I drop it into the bowl that I'm in the process of filling up since I know it needs to breathe, even though the temperature isn't quite right yet and the water is still pouring in. After I turn the water off, I realize the fish has turned into a mini-whale. It's still the same size as an overinflated baby goldfish, but it's now identical to a whale. I made a guess that it was because it ate the raw fish and had to breathe air. I shrug, and transfer the other two fish to the new bowl. A mysterious friend points out to me that one of the fish didn't make it. Looking in the bowl I now see one fish floating on the surface, and the mini-whale and the remaining normal fish swimming its laps.
When I wake up and check, there's luckily just three stupid fish staring at me through clouded water. I am *so* not cleaning out that tank.