Like a fountain, hundreds of fish sailed willingly into the boat.
The pile of slimy, flapping sea creatures grew until it nearly reached
up to the fishermen’s chests. Meanwhile, hundreds more circled the
boat, apparently waiting for space to open up.
“Well, I’ll
be
,” said Hopkins, shocked. “All you gotta do is
surrender
.”
Harvey marveled at the amazing bounty that was now theirs,
then suddenly became grave. “Wait a minute,” he said to his
colleagues, “We have to
ingest
all these? I think I shall surely vomit.”
“No, no,” said Hopkins. “Like I said before, you eat ‘em with your
ears. First, though, I think we should return to shore.”
“Great,” said Vlad, “How are we gonna do that? Our arms are
trapped by all these fucking fish.”
That was when they realized that the fish surrounding the boat
were actually helping to push the boat back to the mainland. These
were some amazing fish, thought Hopkins. He reckoned that they
must have some important information to impart for them to go
through all this trouble.
Once they were back at the beach, the fish sprang promptly out
of the boat, and they were able to climb out. As they did, the army of
fish remained huddled at the shoreline, awaiting further
instructions.
“Weird,” said Vlad.
“Now what?” said Harvey.
“Bon Appetit!” said Hopkins, sitting down and indicating that
the others do the same. After a moment, he stretched out his arms
and read aloud from a small slip of paper the following incantation:
Idears!
We lend you our ears!
Great and small, pithy and banal,
We lend you our ears!
Huge and tiny, fishy and briny,
We lend you our ears!
We’re dim, damned, and dumb here,
So swim, swam, or swum here.
We lend you our ears!
If there’s a notion in the ocean
that can be our secret potion,
don’t keep us in arrears!
H O L Y S H I T !
186
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