53 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
53 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
|
"Once There Was A Fish"
|
|||
|
|
---------------------
|
|||
|
|
Doug Rosentrater
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Once there was a fish who lived in the great ocean, and because the water
|
|||
|
|
was transparent, and always conviently got out of his nose when he moved along,
|
|||
|
|
he reallly didn't know that he was in the ocean.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
One day this fish did a very dangerous thing: he began to think. "Surely I
|
|||
|
|
am a most remarkable being," he thought, "since I can move around like this in
|
|||
|
|
the missle of empty space." Then the fish became confused because of his
|
|||
|
|
thinking about his moving and swimming, and he suddenly had an anxiety
|
|||
|
|
paroxysm, and thought that he had forgotten how. At the same moment, he looked
|
|||
|
|
down and saw the yawning chasm of the ocean depths stretching below him, and he
|
|||
|
|
was terrified that he would drop.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Then he thought desperately: "If I could catch hold of my tail in my mouth,
|
|||
|
|
I could hold myself up." And so he curled himself up the best he could and
|
|||
|
|
snapped at his tail. Unfortunately, his spine wasn't quite supple enough, and
|
|||
|
|
so he missed. As he went on trying to catch hold of his tail, the yawning black
|
|||
|
|
abyss below became even more terrible. He began to slowly drift down since he
|
|||
|
|
wasn't swimming anymore, and the poor fish found himself on the edge of a total
|
|||
|
|
nervous breakdown.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Just then a shark, who had been watching with mixed feelings of pity and
|
|||
|
|
amusement, said, "what are you doing?" The fish looked up, surprised to see the
|
|||
|
|
shark, and replied, " I'm terrified of falling, so I am trying to hold myself
|
|||
|
|
up, but I can't reach my tail." And with this he started nervously sobbing and
|
|||
|
|
drifting farther down.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"well, if that is the case, then why haven't you fallen into the depths
|
|||
|
|
before this?" inquiored th shark in a slow voice.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Of course, I hadn't fallen down earlier, because...because I was swimming."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Oh," said the shark, "Then why don't you stop biting your tail and go back
|
|||
|
|
to swimming?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The fish gasped and suddenly realized that all of his fears were his own
|
|||
|
|
fault. He started swimming and immediately came back up to the shark's level.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"You know," said the shark, " the Great Ocean supports you all the time you
|
|||
|
|
swim. But here you are, instead of exploring its length, breadth, and depth,
|
|||
|
|
wasting...absolutely wasting your time exploring nothing but your own end. If
|
|||
|
|
you don't wise up quickly, then you might as well be a stone instead of a
|
|||
|
|
fish!" And with that the shark drifted off to find his lunch somewhere.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
From then on, the fish put his own end behind him (where it belonged) and
|
|||
|
|
set out to explore the Great Ocean, secure in the knowledge that as long as he
|
|||
|
|
swam, he wouldn't fall.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|