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Butaliveisn’t the same asfree.
Release is a slow, bureaucratic nightmare.
Approvals, permits, red tape, licenses, recommendations, and even more studies.
And the wild places they’re meant to go back to? They’re shrinking every year.
Plastics, noise, chemicals—half the time I feel like we’re just keeping them alive long enough to die somewhere else.
I stroke Aggie’s wet head, swallowing against the lump in my throat.
“You should be out there,” I whisper. “Chasing fish that don’t come from a bucket.”
She blinks at me with dark, liquid eyes.
As if she understands.
As if she aches the same way I do.
This job is supposed to be safe. Predictable.
Every shift is the same routine.
Feed, clean, smile for the tourists.
But it gnaws at me—the sameness. The pretending.
I can’t fix the ocean from here.
I can barely keep myself from drowning in hopelessness.
“Phoebe!” someone calls from across the exhibit.
A coworker waves, already wrangling the next school group.
I plaster on a smile, give a thumbs-up to the teacher wrangling kids at the glass, and turn back to Aggie.
“Showtime,” I sigh, tossing her another fish.
She barks, obedient, her whiskered face lifting toward the crowd.
They clap like trained seals themselves, delighted by the noise, the trick, the neat little moment ofwildserved in a concrete bowl.
And my heart splinters all over again.
I lean closer, stroke the slick curve of her head, and whisper so only she can hear.
“One day, girl. One day we’ll get you back where you belong.”
Dark clouds gather outside the skylights, heavy with the promise of rain.
But rain never stops school trips or tourists, not here.
The buses come, the teachers herd, the parents snap photos.
Rain or shine, the show goes on.
I give Aggie the hand signal to slide into the larger pool, where her primary trainer waits with a whistle and a bucket of thawed fish.
