mementomorioh reblogged
When I was young my dad offhandedly told me he thought people treated fish with so much casual cruelty because fish can’t scream.
The words branded themselves across my soul.
As an adult I think he may have been joking. He payed no especial attention to any indignities fish suffered in our household but I could never forget. I saw fish in a different light after that.
Fish kept in tiny bowls, breathing their own poisons, dying by inches. Fish kept in cold tanks, casually disposed of. Fish touted as being short lived when they could outlive the better loved family dog if only they could breathe. Fish casually won and discarded in cheap plastic bags, thrown away a week later.
How they would scream, if they could.