The blood-orange and black of koi swam about in a small, clear pool. It was the clover-lined pond that Armen had dug out amid his garden in the vacant lot behind his home. The boys had moved the second koi there, a couple weeks after they’d caught it.
The boys dreamed. Their dreams opened in the warm light of the spring afternoon. The sun warmed the doors of their eyes, and the future was born in its light.
koi fingerlings
How long would the two koi live? Were there any more koi in the Sink? If there were, how hard would they be to find?
Armen reclined amid the pumpkin and the watermelon, the sunlight soaking into his face, his hands, and his clothes. The eyes of his imagination looked down into a pool whirling with eddies of koi.
He sat up, and turned to his left. “Do you think we could make more koi?” He paused. “—from ours?”
“Maybe.” Peter the fisherman lay back behind his eyelids. “Maybe we could.”
At recess, they leaned against one of the elm trees lining the schoolyard, talking shop. How to find out how to breed koi? A koi breeder would know. How to find a breeder? Check the phone books at the library. Pet stores. Suppliers—in Fresno. Gardeners.
It turned out that koi were plentiful and cheap, if a kid was willing to wait for them to grow. Some koi were more affordable than others, but the boys were enthused by the revelation that they could raise the less exclusive breeds quite affordably. The food wouldn’t be cheap, but Armen found that koi could be fed table scraps, provided the scraps were the right kind of scraps. They’d have to dig another pond or two, and they’d have to keep the pond water clean. They might need chicken wire to protect the koi from predators. Medicine could be expensive, but they figured they could always buy more hatchlings.
What would they do when the koi grew too large for their ponds?
They could sell them. Yeah, they could sell them, and probably for good money. They could make a business of it. They could put some of the money into buying fingerlings, feed, and even medicine. They might even put an ad in the phonebook.
The shade of the old walnut tree crept across the boys’ faces, as the sun drifted into the West. How much time had passed they could only calculate; it could not be perceived.