It's been almost ten days and he's still alive. His home is a small glass bowl with a ribbon and small glass necklace tied in the peace symbol. On the bottom is a small layer of green red rocks. I hope he doesn't die. I hope he will live as long as I can possibly keep him alive. From across the room I can see his small body wiggling smoothly in the water. His fins are like the tails of a peacock. So colourful, large and vibrant. A vibrant red like a young woman with full long hair tied in one tail behind her head, dyed like so many women do these days. Dyed like I once had my hair done and for a moment, elden sits still on the bottom of the fish bowl without movement. He does this when ever I stand in front of him close up about ready to feed him the two or three pieces of fish flakes for food. I would get really close and just stare at him. If I move to the side, he would follow always staying with me. Everyday when I come home and in the morning when I wake up, I see bubbles around the edge of the water against the glass. Elden is ready. The bubbles are a sign that he wants to mate with a female.
"Lei, I need a girlfriend" is what my friend wrote to me in his email while I was at work the other day.
Earlier that day in a conversation between him and one of his law firm partners...
"Dieter, are you going to the dinner on the 11th?"
"Oh, yes that would be nice."
"Great. And please bring your wife or girlfriend too. Oh wait, you don't have one! Any luck on that front?"
"Ummm nooo unfortunately."
"That's too bad Dieter. Everyone else will. You'd better get crackin."
Back to today... so the race is on. We're trying. He's got a few profiles at an online dating site and I've suggested another. Friday we went to a club on robson street to try our luck. Or rather his as I'm not one who believe in meeting potential relationship types in clubs. In the lineup we meet three young women from Switzerland. They just arrived the night before. One of them over hears us and I can see she is a little bit interested in talking. Dieter begins to talk to them and finds out who they are and where they came from. Then a group of young south america women and an asian man show up in the line up behind us. Of the three swiss girls, there is one woman who is quite pretty and in the group now behind us there is one that is very attractive. I recognize the young man with the women behind us as he is a friend of Jorge whom I met last year. Jorge has since returned to mexico but Min is still here now studying at UBC. One of the women is his new homestead housemates. They had three in their household before. We begin to talk with Min and the south american clan before someone in the group decides that they do not want to wait so they leave.
Dieter and I wait and go into the club. Dieter is continues to talk with the swiss girls because they can speak a different dialect of german. I would find out later that he does not particularly like that dialect because of the way it sounds. When we get in, we find our way to where the swiss girls are. The two average looking ones go dancing while the pretty one continues to stand there at a table in front of me. Dieter sees something on the floor. I watch him bend down, pick it up and put it on the table. He taps the pretty swiss girl on the shoulder as she is looking away from us at first. She turns towards him and Dieter points at two pennies sitting on the table. Up until now, the pretty girl has not spoken to Dieter, only the other two swiss girls.
"Excuse me, did you drop these two pennies?" he asks her.
She gives him a weird look and I shake my head in disappointment.
Dirk steps away and I just stare at him.
"What are you doing Dieter? It's only two pennies?!?!?"
Later on, he takes out a business card and gives it to one of the swiss girls on the dance floor. From a distance I could see the two of them try to look at the card in the limited lighting available with a puzzled expression on their faces. I don't think they are going to call him for a guided tour of vancouver.