And the moral of this story is…

It was a cold, damp, and not altogether fruity afternoon as the fish hurled themselves out of the water. It was cold because the water was very frigid. It was damp because water has that property. And it was not altogether fruity because there was not very much fruit in the stream at the time. That was precisely why the fish were flinging themselves from it. You see, these were no ordinary fish. These fish required fruit to survive. They were known as fruitfish, related distantly to fruitflies. As the fish flopped about on land, taking their last breaths through the moistness in their gills, a small child stumbled over a tree stump into the clearing. The child’s name is not important. What is important is that the child was carrying a small bag of lemons. These were to be the feast and nourishment for his family, which was starving. As he stopped to gather the lemons which had tumbled from the bag, he noticed the fish writhing in the throes of near-death. He recognized immediately that these fish were fruitfish, and feeling much pity for the poor creatures, he tossed lemons at them. It has been said that “when life throws you lemons, make lemonaid.” However, these fish knew not how to make lemonaid. They had but one thought: “must…eat.” When they saw the lemons plummeting from the sky, they screeched (to the extent that fish can screech) in delight and fascination. They proclaimed the boy their God and Savior and devoured the fruit with much vigor. You might suppose at this point that all was well, but nothing could be further from the truth. The lemons were entirely too acidic. The juices corroded the flesh of the fish and they died a horribly agonizing death. But even as they died, they proclaimed the boy as their Savior. They were the first and last martyrs of a religion that found its origin and extinction in a matter of a few minutes one cold and damp afternoon in a riverside clearing.

Tags: Literature, Personal