The situation in the Supermax Prison/Palace of Pain reached a crescendo last week. Authorities finally confronted their dark side and realized that Brain/Einstein was in danger of dying and maybe they should care a bit more. The failure of getting FishFlash to risk their lives to bring him his food probably helped them reassess and turn to the light.

They moved Brain/Einstein back into the big tank earlier today, leaving Madame Geoffrey as the sole Palace resident. The move caused an uproar with PUC and Sweettart and they rushed to the complaints department. Beetlejuice and Smee hardly noticed. Milktoast, observer of all drama, cast a quick glance his way and then went back to cleaning the barrier net. Brain/Einstein, sufficiently subdued after his stint in the supermax house of pain, has moved into a dilapidated plant and kept to himself.

“What was the point of them taking him away, if they are just going to bring him back!” Sweettart said, scales flashing.

“Sure, he’s being good now, but it isn’t going to last. He was incarcerated for a reason.” PUC said, giving the authorities one of the best stink eyes we have ever seen. 

“He deserved whatever Madame Geoffrey was dishing out. Why is he a sudden favorite? He doesn’t talk to the authorities, like, ever,” Sweettart continued. 

“You don’t talk to them either,” Milktoast said as she swam by.

“Keeping score, are you?” Sweettart shouted. PUC grabbed her before she could go after our favorite algae eater, putting an end to the interview.

Meanwhile, Madame Geoffrey is thrilled to be alone. She plays a new game called “talk to the authorities at the end of the hall.” We aren’t sure who created the game, and when we asked, the authorities said that the game came about organically and wasn’t a conscious thing. 

“We say hi from the other end and she says hi back, or she wiggles at us and we say ‘hi Madame Geoffrey.’ She is always watching us and it’s super sweet. We’ve also noticed that she likes to watch tv with us. Who knew she’d be so much by herself?”

 –The Bubbly Review  

Brain/Einstein’s Mistress of Pain, a.k.a Madame Geoffrey, keeps him locked in the castle decoration.

 “If I could fit in that castle, I’d show him how my egg felt when he ate it!” Madame Geoffrey told us, screaming into one of the castle windows where you could see the tip of Brain/Einstein’s nose. 

Unlike in the watery neighborhood, food in the Supermax Prison Palace is abundant, but that doesn’t matter to Madame Geoffrey, who has always been an aggressive eater. Before the egg incident, she did her utmost to keep Brain/Einstein from food; now, with him locked in the castle, his ability to eat has become precarious, to say the least. 

Brain/Einstein’s pleas for help have been ignored.

 “While we understand that living in a tank decoration is uncomfortable, we are unable to sympathize with him. He is living with Madame Geoffrey because of his constant bullying of PUC and Sweettart, and then he ate one of her eggs—something he has yet to apologize for. Sometimes you must face the consequences of your actions, and he’s getting enough food,” one authority said, avoiding eye contact.

We at the Bubbly Review mentioned to the authorities that we think the authorities’ stance is a bit too harsh. 

“Let me assure you that we are taking his complaints about prisoner abuse seriously,” another authority interjected. “We are working with FishFlash to come up with arrangements to have Brain/Einstein’s food delivered directly to him. We’ve run into some complications in our negotiations as we can’t guarantee that Madame Geoffrey won’t eat the delivery person if they don’t move fast enough. But we feel that this will be resolved within the week.” 

For now, authorities feed Madame Geoffrey at the front of the tank while dropping sinking pellets in the back so that it falls on, in, or as close to the castle as possible. Unfortunately, she’s figured out what the authorities are doing and gobbles her food with such veracity that bubbles come out of her gills before dashing to the food for Brain/Einstein. Her mouth isn’t big enough to hold all the food, so he does get plenty to eat. At present, nothing has happened that could cause public outcry since Madame Geoffrey is fine with the arrangement, and no one in the watery neighborhood knows (and probably wouldn’t care even if they did know) about the problem. 

—The Bubbly Review

Beetlejuice and Smee have been battling it out despite the extra room. With Madame Geoffery and Brian/Einstein gone, authorities made an unexpected discovery. Beetlejuice is not the instigator of the fights between him and Smee. In fact, he does his best to ignore her whenever neither of them is in prison. What leads to the fighting is as follows:

• Once Smee gets out of prison, she swims over and pokes Beetlejuice.
• Without responding, he’ll turn away from her.
• She will then come up and jab him.
• He’ll swim away in his leisurely manner, which appears to infuriate her because then she gives him a tail slap to the face. 

It is this last one that causes Beetlejuice to retaliate, resulting in Smee losing large chunks of her tail and flippers. 

Authorities told reporters that “The earlier taunting is most likely what keeps Beetlejuice from ceasing her attacks once she loses her cool.” (We tried to correct the authorities and tell them that Beetlejuice is a he, but they refused to listen).  

Authorities are tired of the prison rotation.

“We are tired of finding creative ways to escape-proof the prison when Ninja Smee is in there. And they are tired of having to medicate the tank because Smee makes herself sick when she realizes she can’t get out. Tired. Of. It,” one authority said with tears in her eyes.

So, they bought a mesh tank divider. However, thanks to the odd shape of the tank, they couldn’t find one tall enough. They were not daunted, though. They grabbed some fishing line and sewed together a couple of tank dividers. They did their best to cram the divider between the two fighters. The divider still doesn’t fit the tank, but the holes are small enough that only Sweettart and PUC can get through comfortably. 

“It looks awful,” Sweattart informed us. “I can’t believe the authorities like looking at it.”

“I don’t mind it,” Milktoast said. “It catches extra food, although the ends of the fishing line do tickle the back of my throat if I’m not paying attention to the section I’m slurping on.”

Ninja Smee is still escaping, and Beetlejuice is still beating her up once he’s had enough of her incessant needling. The difference is that now she has a safe place to go while he calms down. The authorities have decided to accept that this is probably as good as it is going to get.

—The Bubbly Review

The removal of Madam Geoffrey and Brain/Einstein halted the fighting. Beetlejuice and Smee stopped circling each other. PUC and Sweettart frolicked unhindered and took a second honeymoon to celebrate their nemesis’ disappearance. Milktoast has taken over Beetlejuice’s home in the middle of the tank and Beetlejuice moved into Madame Geoffery’s rooms. In the Supermax Prison/Palace, Madame Geoffrey and Brain/Einstein spent several weeks in a charming display of tolerance. We all breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, coexisting ruled. True, there have been a few complaints, but nothing that isn’t normal when you have forced roommates.

Madam Geoffrey went through her bi-monthly habit of laying eggs. In a tank with no jealous diva, grumpy male, or cannibalistic sucker fish, Geoffrey decided it was time to try hatching those eggs, again. The coexistence with Brain/Einstein stopped. In fairness to her, he was foolish to swim closer and closer to her eggs while she laid them.

After getting bit several times, Brain/ Einstein lost his temper and failed to live up to his namesake by eating one of her eggs. Authorities broke up the fight before Einstein lost more than a few scales, making it possible for him to hightail it to the spacious castle that Madame Geoffery can’t fit into. They then removed the eggs.

 In an explosion of self-pity, Madam Geoffrey went to the corner of the tank, and with her back to the authorities, she flung rocks against the sides. She mumbled something about the authorities not knowing what it was like to want kids and how dare they be so insolent as to remove her eggs, and if Sassy were alive, they wouldn’t’ve dared to do such a thing.

Meanwhile, in the old neighborhood, Beetlejuice and Smee are circling again, and PUC and Sweettart are joining in the fray by nipping at the two whenever they get too close to the honeymoon suite. It’s disappointing that all the time and effort to build a new neighborhood in the name of peace was for naught.

Reporters for the Bubbly Review noticed authorities being extra attentive to the comings and goings of the tank in the past few weeks. No one thought much about it. After all, don’t they watch daily? In fact, the only one who seemed to notice was Madame Geoffery. However, since she and the authorities have a strange relationship, no one thought much of that either. We apologize to our readership for not paying closer attention to why the authorities scrutinized the inhabitants’ behaviors.

This morning authorities unveiled a new, smaller neighborhood and announced that Madame Geoffery and Brain/Einstein are being relocated. Madame Geoffery started packing immediately while Brain/Einstein floated around in shock and kept asking PUC if he’d heard correctly. PUC ignored him; the two haven’t exchanged a civil remark in months. The move was smooth, sort of. Brain/Einstein submitted to being flown through the air several feet. He spent several minutes staring at the old neighborhood across the room before deciding which decoration would be his home. Madame Geoffery floundered, shook, and wriggled so much that the authorities had to hold on to her to keep her in the net (they were wise enough to use a paper towel to grab her; otherwise, her scales would have sliced their hand). She’s cheerful enough that the trauma didn’t stick with her. She spent several minutes exploring her new surroundings with glee, shouting to herself, “I’m not being chased! That stupid Smee isn’t taunting me. This is wonderful. A tad small, but I’m not complaining.” She’s back to talking to the authorities as if they didn’t yank her from her old home into an atmosphere where she can’t breathe for several steps and then plopped her into a place half the size. 

We were able to pull the authorities aside and ask them why a new neighborhood was built and why they chose Madame Geoffrey and Brain/Einstein as the sole residents. For the first time, we got an answer from both authorities. They were a bit conflicting. One said it was the new supermax prison and the other called it a palace.

“It’s a supermax prison because Madame Geoffrey and Brain/Einstein can’t get along with anyone,” said authority number one.

“My friend is calling it a prison because Brain/Einstein instigates fights with everyone and when Madame Geoffrey isn’t being chased she and Ninja Smee get into fights. However, Madame Geoffrey isn’t being punished. We needed to remove her so that Queen Beetlejuice wouldn’t eventually kill her. That is why I am calling it a palace.” Authority number two attempted to clarify.

Prison, palace, it doesn’t matter what anyone wants to call it. The point is that Madame Geoffrey and Brain/Einstein are no longer part of the watery neighborhood.

—The Bubbly Review

Op-ed Article

Is it humane to train fish? I ask myself this often when I watch our watery neighborhood during dinner. Do authorities mean to “train” when they gauge if the response to opening the top of the tank is enthusiastic enough to drop food? They say that it is their way of keeping the tank at its appropriate levels and thus keeping the fish healthy. Still, I wonder if they aren’t a bit sadistic in their approach.

Authorities serve dinner after they close the curtains. This begins a somewhat charming dance that the inhabitants do: swimming up and down and wriggling in a manner that makes their fins flare out, a motion that becomes more rapid as the authorities draw near. The authorities also talk to the fish as they come closer and get out the food. Saying things like, “Are you hungry? What type of dinner would you like tonight? Everyone please let Milktoast eat her tablet. Beetlejuice, Geoffery gets to eat too.” If the fish ignore the curtains and don’t respond to the questions, the authorities assume that no one is hungry and don’t serve dinner.

Geoffery has figured this out; perhaps she is the most trainable. I’d like to say the smartest, but there are things she does that definitely show that is not a descriptor that can be applied to her. When everyone else is doing whatever they are doing and miss the curtain cue, Geoffery is at the top jiving away—opening and closing her mouth while the authorities talk. I have heard the authorities say, “Everyone thank Geoffery for being so enthusiastic to eat.”

(Enthusiastic is the correct word for it. Geoffery shoves so much food in her mouth before the other fish can reach the top that there’s concern that one day she’ll choke).  

When the other residents are told to thank Geoffery that they are getting to eat suggests that the authorities know they are training the fish that if they do not respond correctly, they are denied food. I must point out that dinner is eventually served on the days the inhabitants aren’t attentive during the curtain call, proving the authorities aren’t heartless. There is also the fact that too much uneaten food in the tank will rot and cause diseases like ick. These are good reasons for authorities to ensure that everyone is hungry and will see the food when it is served so that it doesn’t drift down and disappear into gravel. Does that make what they do okay? It is a question to ponder, despite Geoffery’s conduct, which ensures everyone gets fed on time, and indeed, I wonder if she isn’t the cue that the others follow, not the curtain or talking.  

—Observer Joe

Sponsored by That Fish Store. “Our superior algae tablets will have your pleco screaming for more.”

“Good evening, this is Dover Scale and Mackerel Fins welcoming you to another broadcast of the algae game!”

“We are looking forward to another wonderful spectacle. I wonder who will win this night’s competition, Dover?”

“My money is on Madame Geoffrey. Last night Milktoast ate her eggs before she could get them in her mouth. I see vengeance in the way she flicks her tail. I don’t think she’s going to let anyone else get Milktoast’s food.”

“And the tablet’s dropped! It barely hits the water before Beetlejuice nabs it and starts munching like he hasn’t just finished scarfing down flakes.”  

“Brain/Einstein comes charging up from the bottom and bravely bites Ninja Smee out of the way! He’s trying to yank the tablet out of Beetlejuice’s mouth! Furious, Beetlejuice drops the tablet and goes after Brain/Einstein. The tablet descends gently towards the bottom.”

“To be picked up by Madame Geoffery! You might be right, Dover, she may win this thing. But wait, PUC, apparently inspired by Brain/Einstein’s foolish antic, tries to yank the tablet out of her mouth. She runs away, and she’s a very strong runner thanks to Beetlejuice, the tablet jostling up and down while she chews.”

“Meanwhile, Milktoast’s watching the mayhem. I wonder if she’ll get into the fray tonight, Mackerel. She may be too full from eating Madame Geoffrey’s eggs last night.”

“That may be a good thing. The competition for the algae is hot tonight. It’s now in Smee’s possession and already half-gone.”

“Lunch Lady has dropped another tablet in the tank. PUC and SweetTart notice it, but since they can’t get the whole thing in their mouths all they can do is pick at it. Milktoast descends on the algae, nudging PUC and Sweettart out of the way and covers it with her body. Milktoast has her food!”

“Meanwhile, Madame Geoffery finishes off the first tablet. You called that one, Dover.”

“And that’s it for us tonight. This broadcast was made possible by That Fish Store. “Our superior algae tablets will have your pleco screaming for more.”

 This Mackerel Fins and Dover Scales from the Gravel Channel saying ta-ta for now. See you tomorrow, folks!”  

The residents of our dear neighborhood have reached puberty, see https://keturahbarchers.com/2023/08/04/geoffrey-stops-eating-and-the-gender-reveal/article about Geoffrey and her eggs, which means their adult color has come in. Beetlejuice’s color is on the drab side of tan and white, which is typical for the Red Frontossa (Humphead). However, by now his face should be blushing into blue and his fins tipped or streaked blue, not to mention a darkening of the tan stripes. After all the gender issues the authorities have had, they did a quick image search to make sure that they had identified Beetlejuice’s sex properly, but they did not read anything. They went by the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words and decided they didn’t need to confirm their assumptions. Since Beetlejuice is four years old and still on the pale side, and thanks to internet pictures making authorities think that the uncommon incredibly blue face is the norm, they have decided he’s a gal. To remedy what they believe is a mistake, they changed his name much like they changed Madame Geoffrey’s name. They now call him Queen Beetlejuice. 

We at The Bubbly Review tried to correct them, but they wouldn’t listen. Instead, they pointed out his lack of color and referenced their previous mistakes. We interrupted their rambling justifications to ask why they chose Queen Beetlejuice and not something more normal like Mistress Beetlejuice. They pointed at him and said, “Because she rules the tank.” His ruling the tank is the only point we can agree upon.

We went to Beetlejuice to see how he felt about now being a Queen, and for a moment, his face was so fierce we thought he’d eat one of us.

“It’s not my fault I’m a late bloomer,” he said and went to his corner to sulk.  

—The Bubbly Review

With all the drama with the three big fish, it’s been easy in the last few weeks to forget about the three little guys (PUC, Sweettart, and Brain-Einstein) and the ever-patient Milktoast (who is not little).

Our newest reporter checked on them and was horrified to see PUC and Sweettart taking turns walloping Brain-Einstein in the face and side. Brain-Einstein, not to be cowed by any abuse, was dolling out punches between getting whapped. Authorities broke up the fight and put Einstein in prison. They assured us they were being fair in choosing who to incarcerate, as Brain-Einstein has started ten fights with PUC, Sweettart, and Beetlejuice in the last three days. Our faith in the authorities is beginning to wane, particularly in their ability to be fair. 

Milktoast was busy eating Madame Geoffrey’s abandoned eggs, distressing Geoffrey. When we went to comfort the would-be mother, she told us that although she knew hatching the eggs was a lost cause after spitting them out to eat, it still hurt to see them being munched on. Milktoast’s mouth was too full to reply, but the smile on her face suggested she could care less about causing distress. There might be some revenge there, too, since Madame Geoffrey often steals Milktoast’s food.  

Plopping Brain-Einstein in the slammer causes issues for authorities as Beetlejuice has ramped up his abuse towards Ninja Smee and Madame Geoffrey…again.

“We are tired of putting Beetlejuice in jail,” authorities confided. “Our jail is big enough that all the fish can move around, but still, having him in jail every other week is stressful and we feel guilty.”

 To remedy their guilt about the full prison, authorities decided to change tactics. They call it, “Go to your corner.” The strategy is simple when they get tired of seeing Beetlejuice chase and beat up the two ladies; they scream at him to go to his corner. Surprisingly, this works. He does indeed go to the corner he favors and stays there for a short time. Some days the stay is smaller than others, but authorities are pleased that this appears to be working. How long it will work remains to be seen.

—The Bubbly Review

Four days ago, Authorities watched in awe as Geoffrey started moving rocks around, and Beetlejuice ignored her audacity to not play dead in a plant. Despite the invasion of his space, which in his mind is the entire tank, he did not chase her, although he did watch.

It was a relaxing evening, and the Authorities told our reporters that it was a relief to watch the neighborhood without feeling the need to break up fights.

That relief was short-lived; however, when they noticed that Geoffrey was not eating. Instead, she would swim in circles under the food as if to eat, only to descend to the depths of the tank to hide.

“We kept asking what was wrong and why aren’t you eating, but Geoffrey remained silent. This scared us because not only is he the most talkative of the fish, always greeting us whenever we walk by, but he’s the foodie of the tank. We inspected him, ur excuse me, her, and found no traces of any kind of sickness. Then the research began and we were coming up with nothing.”

Tonight, the mystery was solved. Obviously starving, Geoffrey came up to the food, spit out a mouthful of eggs, took two bites, and then quickly shoved her eggs back into her mouth. Everyone heard the Authorities gasp as they finally realized that Geoffrey is female. 

“We had our suspicions,” they told us, “but we were unsure. Naturally, we feel embarrassed.” 

Those of us at The Bubbly Review don’t quite believe that the Authorities had suspicions since they read articles that mentioned that the Giraffe Cichlid is a mouth breeder. It’s hard to eat when eggs are in your mouth.

We asked if they would now call her by her real name, Ginger, and they said no. We asked Madame Geoffrey if that bothered her and she said, “Not at all. They like the name and I like the name. Besides only Sassy ever called me Ginger and I’d like to keep that special.”

—The Bubbly Review