Some people’s success is just too exaggerated for anyone to believe they came by it honestly, and we can only imagine the carnage that one hotshot must have left in his wake as he ruthlessly clawed his way to the top: This one fish is way bigger than all the others in the koi pond.
There’s just no way a koi achieves that kind of size differential without giving up a piece of his soul.
The ornamental carp of this koi pond nearly all measure somewhere between four and eight inches long, and in a just, equitable water feature, that would likely be the end of the story. But the jarring presence of a single, damn near toddler-sized Sanke koi lumbering his way through the water suggests that stomach-churning acts of piscine depravity are far from uncommon beneath this koi pond’s tranquil surface. We could chalk it up to dumb luck if this koi had just an extra inch or two on his peers, but you don’t wind up a full 70% bigger than the next largest fish without pulling some absolutely vile shit along the way. There’s clearly no moral line this behemoth wouldn’t cross to hoover up as many nutrients as possible, and that shameless self-interest could hardly be more obvious if his distinctive markings spelled out “HERE COMES A FUCKING SOCIOPATH” on one side and “WILL COMMIT ATROCITIES FOR FOOD” on the other.
We’ll never know all the unseemly details of this lunker’s rise to bigness, but written in his almost football-like girth are a thousand unspoken tales of grotesque, insatiate greed. Has he muscled an elderly Kōhaku koi out of the way to gobble up the weaker fish’s dinner? Almost certainly. Has he gleefully concussed fellow koi while jostling to the front of the pack when a visitor comes by to scatter fish food? Without a doubt. Has this fucker, in his utter contempt for any and all other life forms, methodically consumed any juvenile koi unlucky enough to fit within the limits of his endlessly gulping maw, cannibalizing even his own offspring in an orgiastic frenzy of self-gratification and spite? Of course he has. Look at him. Look at how goddamn big he is. He’s probably eaten every kid he’s ever had.
A fish like this belongs in a prison cell, not a koi pond.
This big chunky koi may live the good life for now, but karma’s a motherfucker, and someday his cutthroat feeding habits are going to catch up to him. Someday, a raccoon’s gonna come around this koi pond looking for a feast, and all that ill-gotten bulk will mark this koi out as the tastiest morsel in the bunch. And as the raccoon’s teeth tear into his flesh, ripping the life from his body bite by agonizing bite, maybe then he’ll finally realize that all those betrayals along his path to largeness—all those fellow koi he so callously offered up at the altar of personal gain—were just links in a chain of his own making that bound him inescapably to this fate.
It makes us sick imagining all the underhanded bullshit this koi must have pulled to get this huge. Here’s hoping the day of this monster’s comeuppance is right around the corner!
