Friday Fish Fiction 2

By popular demand of my two most faithful readers, here is the second part of Arphaxad's story:

My parents were very pious fish who did not believe in eating their eggs – I was one of six hundred siblings – and they had each of us emerged right after we hatched. I dutifully learned all my prayers (the Hail Marlin, the Our Fish, and the Piscine Creed), the names of all twelve Albacores, and the doctrine of the Holy Trinity: Great Carp, Son of Carp, and Holy Current. I always wore a drying rack with a corpus carpi on it because the Son of Carp had allowed himself to be lifted up on a drying rack to dry away our sins, and I prayed for the souls of the fish in the Marsh, that they would soon be welcomed into the Sea of Stars. The angelfish who taught me in my youth assumed I would someday grow up to be an angelfish too, but I secretly wanted to be a manta. However, only boy fish could be mantas.

We were not terribly wealthy; Mother said there was some koi on her side of the family, but Father’s fish were just poor carp from the other side of river who came over during the Algae Famine. Still, we always had enough. I had a happy fryhood, playing with all the other small fry in our lake, being taught by the angelfish during the week, and going to the reef on Sundays. I told my parents that I wanted to go to Venice someday, but they figured this was just a fingerling dream that I would soon outgrow.

“Isn’t Venice near where the Polycarp lives?” I wondered. “Then I could go see the Polycarp AND Venice!” (There have been many fish called Polycarp; the first one was the head Albacore.)

Mother and Father just smiled indulgently and said yes, maybe someday I could go visit Venice and see the Polycarp too, but not while I was such a small fish.

As time passed, I lost interest in going to the reef. I got my gills pierced and smoked seaweed down by the old mill with the tougher young fish. Any thoughts of being an angelfish left me, but I did still want to visit Venice. However, my father said young fish belonged in schools, not off swimming across the ocean, and although I argued that I was now full grown, he was not persuaded. Off to a school I went, and my dreams of visiting Venice would have to wait until I returned with a degree in fin.

Famous Hat