The King and the Fish

It was raining in my mind when the fish flew overhead and told me about the secret passageway through the muddy valley. The king had come into town and promised he’d make the corn grow because a drought had persisted through the spring that was making everything wilt. The king delivered on his promise and it has been raining ever since, the valley has flooded and the fish came in from above.

The fish told me I could get out of the rivers if I crawled through the mud very carefully. I had to be careful so that I would not drown. But I was afraid and too sure that I would drown. The dirt was far far below all the water now and I did not understand how I could crawl through it. I did not listen to the fish and refused to plunge below my house and look for the muddy passageway.

The rains continued and all the corn that we had not picked, drowned. Our houses were made of clay and they had dried out so much when the fires and droughts were here that when the rains came they crumbled like snow under the sun. The passageway grew further and further away as the waters rose and I still refused to listen to the fish. I did not understand how I could ever go that far under. I can not hold my breath for that long.

The king was bad because he drowned our village even though our corn grew. He told us we should be grateful because he gave us food but now we cannot breathe so he was a bad king. The king has lied and tricked his people and the corn means nothing to us because we are drowning.

The king for a long time tried to convince us that he was good even after the flying fish told me to dive under. I was a fool for many years as the rains drowned us. I was sure the rains were there for a good reason, to grow the corn. But the rainwater rose and now I am going to die. The king was bad and I am a fool.

The corn means nothing to me now. Under I go. I think that it’s too far away now. The muddy passageway is too far away. Maybe when the flying fish first warned me, if I had listened, I would have made it down there. I should have listened to the fish and not the king. But only a fool would listen to fish and not kings. It is not my fault.

It’s too far away now.

I am suffocating below the water. I understand that the passageway is there and still I suffocate. I think that I waited too long.

I am drowning.

I am there?

The passageway is beneath my fingers and the mud seeps through them as I squeeze. I open the door and it lets me in, beneath the passageway is air mixed with water. I am pulled out and I can breathe, a deep deep breath of air fills my lungs. It is relief even though it’s still mixed with water, it is life even though it’s riddled with sadness.

I’m flying above the village! The water from the passageway I opened pours down into the new sky like rain. I fly down to the villagers and suddenly see the circumstances of this new fate. The water from my old flood is pouring onto their village. I wonder how long this water has been there, I think forever.

“Go to the muddy passageway in the valley,” I tell them. But they do not listen. They listen to a king and not a fish.