Friday Fish Fiction 4

Arphaxad is back with her weekly installment of fishy fiction.

I was swimming by a bicycle store when a poster in the window caught my eye. It was a photo of a marlin charging up a coral mountain on a state-of-the-art bicycle, a bicycle so light that in the next picture he was holding it up with one fin on the top of the mountain. The caption read: “Boethius Bicycles – Where Free Will Meets Destiny.”

I know what they say, that a fish without a bicycle is like a woman without a man, but at that very moment there was nothing I wanted more in this ocean than a Boethius Bike. I went into the store and inquired as to the price of the bike advertised on the poster. When the salesfish, a scruffy bottom feeder with droopy barbs, answered my query, I nearly went belly-up in shock. But biking across the ocean to Venice seemed more feasible than swimming the entire way, and so I asked if he had anything cheaper.

“What’s your price range?” he asked. I told him, and he said doubtfully, “I might have a used unicycle for that price.”

“Really? What’s your cheapest bicycle?”

He stroked his barbs thoughtfully and considered the question.

“Well,” he finally said, “I do have something in the basement, but it’s a very old model, and it might need some repairs. Heck, I’d practically have to pay you to take this thing off my hands.”

“Can I see it?”

“Certainly.” He disappeared into the basement, and I could hear him clattering around. Presently his voice bubbled up: “It doesn’t have a chain.”

“That’s okay, I can afford to buy a chain.”

“Oh no, I mean it doesn’t take a chain. It’s in better shape than I thought – you should be able to ride it out of here.” He emerged from the basement with the bicycle, which was a state-of-the-ark Boethius, a real old-fashioned penny farthing. The front wheel was taller than I was, and the back wheel barely came up to the top of my tail fin.

“How will I ride that thing?” I asked in amazement. “I’ll float right off!”

“It takes some getting used to,” the salesfish admitted. “But if you want it, it’s yours.”

The salesfish wasn’t kidding about the old bike taking some getting used to. I tried to ride it away from the store and immediately floated right off. On my next attempt, I ran headlong into a colony of zebra mussels and tumbled over the handlebars onto the hard shells. Finally, after suffering numerous cuts and bruises and what felt suspiciously like a sprained ventral fin, I successfully rode the bike for a short distance. A very cute carp on a brand-new Boethius biked by and said, “What a retro bike!”

“Thanks!” I said. “It’s an ’86 Boethius.”

That stopped him dead in his tracks. He turned and biked back.

“Really? An ’86? That thing looks ancient!”

“Yeah, 1886,” I told him, thinking the bike wasn’t so bad if it got cute carp to stop and talk to me. However, he simply snorted and biked away much faster than I could go on my ’86 Boethius. Ah well, it may not have been the fastest bike in the ocean, but it would undoubtedly be faster than swimming all the way to Venice.

Famous Hat