The wild

People come and go. Every day, a crowd of humans walk in, stare, point. The sign says not to tap on the glass, but the little ones do it anyway. I stare back at them.

There is only so much to do in here. I swim in circles. The humans visit; some of them scream or giggle. A few people drop food in our tanks. They talk to us. I wonder if they tell each other that part because they all call us by different names. I am Fred and Sandy and Nemo and Buttercup and Finn all at once.

Today is different. Mornings are typically slow. My view is groggy-looking, familiar faces. The people who name us wipe down the glass, adjust the lights, and wander off out of view, but then it is normally empty for a while. Not today. Today, there are new faces before the glass is fully clean. They do not stare or point. They sit.

They sit with their backs to us. They dig in their bags and pull out signs that face the rest of the room where the people walk through on a normal day. They say nothing.

What does this mean? I wonder.

I swim back and forth across the length of my tank. The others join me. We stare, but unlike every other day, no one is staring at us. We are a school of movement, and I try to remember when we last swam together like this. I can't remember if we ever have.

The silence breaks as new humans walk in. They look confused, and someone on the floor in front of the tank begins to speak.

Captivity is cruel! Free the fish! Someone shouts.

Free the fish! Everyone else on the floor shouts back.

Free the fish? I wonder.

I stop swimming the length of the tank. We all do. We stare.

Free the fish? Free us from what?

The humans sitting on the floor keep chanting like that. More people walk in. Some walk right back out. The humans who feed us and name us try to address the people who have set up their display in front of our tanks. The chanting continues.

Eventually, the group quiets down. Our humans try again to address them.

These fish can't survive in the wild. They were born in captivity. They are the offspring of rescues and rehabilitation cases. The human who calls me Buttercup attempts to make peace. She seems distraught.

I don't understand what she's saying. I look around me at the others, all staring at the humans. Some of them swim in circles as they try to understand. No one knows what she means by the wild.

Finally, one of the older fish swims toward the glass. He is missing an eye and bits of a fin from an illness long since healed.

I remember. He says to us. We shift our focus away from the humans' bickering to listen.

I was out there. In the wild, there is no glass window. Human sightings are rare, but sometimes, they would catch one of us. They caught me. He pauses.

More humans appear. They corral the people sitting in front of our tank and drag them away. Their signs litter the floor. The commotion passes and the room goes quiet before he continues.

I was put in a much smaller tank than this. The humans who fed me would stick their hands in the water. The little ones tried to grab at me. Eventually, I grew weak, and one of the little ones noticed. She was bigger by then, and she brought me here.

The human who calls me Buttercup sighs and approaches our tank. She stares long and sad at the old fish.

I was sick, and she saved me. When I got better, they put me here. I could not survive returning home like this. I would be a target. I would never be safe.

The old fish turns to look at the human who calls me Buttercup. The ones who feed us never touch the glass, but this time, she does. She puts her hand up to the glass right in front of the old fish.

I'm sorry. She whispers.

It's not her fault. He tells us.