FISH

On the day before his retirement, Commodore Walfish stood on the deck of his command, the SS Sea Witch, and reflected upon his life, a life on the ocean wave. Ah, the sea! The sea. How he would miss its stupid blue face. How he would miss being tossed and thrown, miss his dinner sliding around the table, miss spewing whatever he'd managed to eat over the side of the boat each and every evening. Oh how he hated the sea! He had hated, he now realised, every nautical minute of his life on the ocean wave.

But Walfish was a man of his word. He wasn't about to compromise his good name with last minute broken appointments. Tonight, well, tonight he had a date with the Devilfish....

Under cover of darkness, the Commodore slipped out of his cabin porthole and into the ocean. He was not wearing any diving equipment, because he did not need any.

Every day for years the Commodore had taken a sauna, each day increasing the humidity by a few percent. Once past 100% humidity, the air became more water than air, and eventually it was 100% water. Thus, by degrees, he had acclimatised his body so that he could now breathe underwater as well as any fish. He pitied those poor divers with their cumbersome and unnecessary oxygen tanks!

Gradually he made his way down and down to the underwater castle of the Devilfish.

On the way there, he passed a throng of octopus, who seemed to huddle together and whisper to each other something like "Those who enter Jupiter, may God save their souls".

"Not a problem", thought the commander, as he wasn't going anywhere near Jupiter at ALL.

Was he?

He found the castle of the Devilfish abandoned. This was odd, as the Devilfish was a stickler for timekeeping! She hadn't gone out, as her bicycle was lying abandoned on the drawbridge, and she never went anywhere unless riding upon 'Rosinante'*. Walfish went through into the study, where one would normally expect to find her hard at work on her magical tracts, but the room was empty. Curiously, though, there was a strange new window on the wall, high above the Devilfish's desk. It was small, and perfectly square. He swam up, and peered inside.

* There is a strange proverb, in the world above, which suggests that a bicycle is useless to a fish, but anyone who has spent any time under the sea would attest to its falsity. Indeed, cycling is common - the octopuses Walfish had passed earlier were riding four bicycles each.

He walked into the gymnasium, and saw many different fish - clownfish, salmon, tuna, cod, haddock, grimbletufftyflops (a rare fish indeed), fappyfappydoodahs (even rarer), all riding exercise bikes, rowing machines, and going on treadmills, which is very tricky for a fish. "I never knew fish had gymnasiums!", the Commodore exclaimed. 

"We don't have a gymnasium", the nearest rainbow trout replied, "it's a FISHnasium"

All the fish in the gym fell about laughing, for these creatures didn't really GET humour, in fact their whole attitude around it revolved around just changing one word to "fish". It was never funny. But the fish? Well, they thought it was hysterical.

"I've been expecting you, Mr. Bond", said a sinister voice from the cross trainer machine.

"No, you were expecting FISH", said a roe, pleased with himself. Cue more fish hilarity.

The Commodore braced himself and said...

"I regret to inform you all, that the Devilfish has fallen out of a strange new window in her study. Insofar as I can tell, given my scant knowledge of astronomy, the window leads to Jupiter."

Meanwhile, the Devilfish had just hit the core of Jupiter, and had just had some 'evil' put in her...

The source of this evil was Jupiter himself. The god, Jupiter, also known as Jove. Jupiter, the planet, was a gas giant, and so was Jove, in that he was a giant in the gasoline industry. Jupiter, the planet, was made of gas, and Jove had made a considerable fortune selling it. He was now attempting to sell the Devilfish on a brand new idea.

"A fish doesn't need a bicycle," said Jove. "What a fish needs is a car."

All the other fish in the Jimnaysium (they were awful spellers too) looked at each other warily. There was contempt, if ever you'd seen it, for fish have never embraced new technology in the same way that seals have, and the idea of owning a spinny-wheeled brumbrum machine was NOT something they were going to be roped into. A rainbow trout leapt off the cross trainer and landed a swift left hook upon Jove's face. Deadly silence followed. The other fish waited, petrified...

"THIS", uttered Jove in the most sinister voice imaginable, "is unacceptable. The only way to settle the matter is for me to have a fire fight with Cod Almighty".

The other fish backed away and watched in fear as Jove turned to face the Commodore...

The Commodore drew himself up to his full height of four foot eight. He cast his mind back to the great sea battle of 1976, in which he took on seventeen Barbary Pirates single-handedly, armed only with a... With a... Now what was it he used again?

"Prepare to meet your fate", said Jove, in a far more dramatic voice than was necessary.

"No", said one of the three skates in the corner, "Prepare to meet your FISH."

This time, nobody laughed, and the skate shuffled uncomfortably...

"Skate! That was it!" said the Commodore exultantly. He reached into his backpack, pulled out a pair of roller skates, size four and a half, and pulled them on.

Never having been particularly adept at skating, the Commodore slipped and slid, clacking his feet together one, two, three times...

And he was back home in Kansas, loyal dog Yoyo yapping happily by his side. His quest to find the golden fleas would have to wait another day. Ah well, nobody's perfect.

The next day, the crew crowded around the door to the Commodore's cabin. Two ensigns carried between them an enormous cake with the words "Happy Retirement Commodore Walfish" written on it in pink sugar icing. 

"Surprise!" they yelled, bursting into the room, but the Commodore was nowhere to be seen. Instead they found an octopus riding four exercise bikes at the same time. 

"Fishprise!" said a small skate, bursting out of the cake.