The First Casualty

New stencil graffiti on Hamra

On a regular day in my house, by 8 o’clock, it is empty. The family members have left to either work or school, and all that remains in the house is the housekeeper and the large menagerie of animals.
Now that schools and most businesses are closed in this part of town, we hang around the house, watch the news, surf the web, raid the fridge, interfere with the housekeeper’s routine and get otherwise bored.

And so, while drinking coffee, my daughter comes in and reports:
“One of my fishes is floating!”
Drama.

Of the original school of 14 fish in her aquarium, two – under the watchful eye of my daughter - have religiously clung to life for the past two years.

We go check it out. And indeed. One seems to be floating.
‘Aha’, I am thinking, ‘that’s why I only saw one this morning, when I fed them.’

Hubbie, attracted by my daughter’s piercing sounds of sorrow, passes by.
“I was already wondering when I fed them this morning, where the other one went,” he remarks.

Son, hearing the commotion, drags himself out of his bed and drops by.
“He was still alive last night when I fed them,” he says.

The housekeeper, standing next to us, shrieks: “You’ve all been feeding them! They are supposed to be fed only once every three days! No wonder he’s dead.”

And she continues her work, leaving us standing next to the aquarium, looking guilty.
My daughter looks at us, and says accusingly, “So it’s you who killed my fish!”

Ouch.

That’s what you get when you hang around the house all day. We're usually too busy to worry about the fish.

They say that in a war the first casualty is the truth. In our household it was the fish.