Neat Trick: One Trick Pony

So I come home, after a long day of work...
Wander through the house, doing small amounts of cleaning...
And just as I am finishing the latest round of un-ending dishes, I glance at the tank.
Scanning for nothing in particular I land on the sucker fish; hanging half way out of the entrance to the castle.
It looks like a neat trick, for the largest thing in the tank to be seemingly stuck in the castle.
Then I get a little closer... wow, and he's even upside-down in there too... what a jokester...
So I get out my camera and start snapping playful shots from different angles to share with the original owner of this entertaining little rascal.
Then I notice the other fish... they are nibbling on him and he is still not moving...
Then reality sinks in.
He isn't playing... what creature would lodge itself in an opening half its size, upside-down, not moving, not breathing... just for fun?
The kind that requires a large net and a burial at sea... that's what kind.
So suddenly I realize my once playful photos will now be the macabre final documentation of a life of neglect. I am already trying to conjure the words to tell my friend I killed the fish he raised from a little baby for five years.

Unbesnownst to Mr. Suckie Fish, the Black Castle of Death has a bit of a history, much like the Hotel California, inhabitants often never check out. I had to retrieve poor Blackie's disolved remains from that same room only a few months ago.

I start bargaining fast, thinking of ways to revive him, like people staring at a beached whale, not knowing what to do, but wanting to help.
I start showering him with food... Like that will make it all better...
Yes I forgot to feed you this morning, and the one before, and...
well I can't think of the last time I took the twenty seconds that are required to care for such simple dependents...

But in the end it turns out that Mr. Suckie Fish is the one who has me trained...
Awkwardly shoving himself into precarious situations and playing dead, just to guilt me into feeding him.
Immediately upon seeing food, he finished his acrobatic routine and returned to his post on the side of the tank.