The Golden Shovel

One fish, two fish, red fish, which fish?

By Benjamin Acker

f you were a fish, what kind would you like to be?
For the imaginative--or those with the capacity to see the similarities between human and piscatorial society--it might be interesting to ponder the answer.
Maybe you would be an anchovy. A `chovy is a small silvery fish that swims with about 10 million of its closest friends in a large school. No anchovy is ever quite sure if it is leading those to the rear or following those that swim before it. And so they swim along in the deep blue sea, relatively safe in their numbers and in their clone-like similarity with one another. But life is short for the lone baitfish--they quickly fall victim to a hungry bass from below or to an errant seagull from the skies.
Then again, maybe you are a halibut. Born like any other fish that swims upright, the halibut is too proud to remain so normal, so it undergoes a radical transformation. Its eyes migrate to one side of the body, and the whole body turns sideways so that the fish appears flat like a carpet. Halibut grow large in their slothful longevity, and their sluggish pride increases with their size. Rarely venturing far from the sea floor, they are the kings and queens of their muddy abode. Halibut wait for life to swim within their grasp, filling the downtime with boredom and loneliness.
Some people would be tuna. Among the fastest fish in the sea, they zip through the deep offshore ocean with incredible speed. Tuna have three things in mind--eat, don't get eaten, and make baby tuna. They are the opposite of the halibut, never swimming far from the surface. They devote their time to speed, never slowing down enough to take a look at the world flowing by. Tuna swim together in schools like anchovies, but no tuna is a follower. Every tuna tries to lead the school faster than the next; and since they don't know where they are going, they often end up bound for your local supermarket.
A select few of us would be marlin. A majestic billfish that grows to great size and can attain incredible speed in the water, the marlin is the champion of all fish. When a marlin is born, it is a tiny blob that floats where the currents of destiny take it. But it quickly takes control of itself and the ocean it lives in. It seeks a mate that it keeps for life. Marlin are precise hunters, using their sharp bills to dispatch prey, killing only what can be eaten. But elegance has its price, and many a sad marlin loses its mate, never knowing the final resting place is the wall of a fisherman's den.
Maybe it's good that we are not fish after all. Human life gives us the opportunity to change ourselves, which is something our brothers and sisters in the sea can never do. Fish can stubbornly be what they are, using their natural instincts as an excuse.
What's yours?