by Mark Watson
Copyright 2005
source: http://www.markwatson.com/opencontent/
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial License.
The male was happy. The water was clear, food abundant, and many females flashing through the water. Quiet joy in sliding through the reeds and feeding.
A young female caught his eye, flashing nearby. The male watches as she feeds, finding food efficiently where the rocks pile up. Suddenly, she jerks and shoots up through the air. The male knows that she will not come back.
The few old ones left talk of the times when the people were not confined to the pond area. Probably just stories – the young male does not know. The old ones do seem to understand the others: if you quietly float up to the surface, sometimes you can glimpse the others. The old ones say to quietly move away from the others.
The old ones talk of the people once living in cities and not in the mud by the pond. They speak of visitors from the stars seen at night who came, killed, and ate the people. Most of the people are gone now, except for a few kept for sport and food.
Tags: Mark Watson, Short Story
January 11, 2009 at 11:33 pm
nice post, ANT!
January 12, 2009 at 1:31 am
those in the pond are people?
January 12, 2009 at 9:12 pm
This is a story told from a fish’s ‘perspective’. The story talks of a superior alien race coming to Earth and rearing humans for food and sport, the same way we humans have been treating other animals…
January 13, 2009 at 12:56 am
@ Aros — ah thank you… now i geddit
January 13, 2009 at 3:34 am
I think Mr Watson’s deliberately trying to be vague about the characters here.. and that makes the story even more powerful… the description suits perfectly well if we assume the story as being told from a fish’s perspective as well from a human’s… the fish in the “fish farm” can be taken literally or metaphorically… …the only thing that explicitly hints that the characters are fishes is the line “if you quietly float up to the surface”.. it makes no sense to say that humans float up to the surface (or does it??)… but it really doesn’t matter..if my interpretation is correct this is one hell of a brilliant story.
January 13, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Well that’s what I thought initially — that the fish live in the pond, the humans in the mud by the pond and the aliens take over the rest.. but then the last line threw me off…
But now it’s making sense, and yes the description is powerful, leaves a lingering thought.