From the Memoirs of a Super Intelligent Spring Chinook Fry

As of this morning, there were 4918 siblings at my house, a cold water flat on the 5^th floor of an incubator high rise just south of the mother water.  Life here is tolerable, if not measurably pleasant. 

Snapshot: Hello Jack, Hello Jenny, oh pardon me, I’m sorry for bumping you, Who just smacked me with their tail, Hmm I think I’ll just lay down for a little nap.

Today I was working on eating the last of my yolk sack and stitching myself up (I’m trying the new dissolving sutures and will compare to the natural method applied by my co-habitants) when unexpectedly there was a bright light, the water sloshed and there, I kid you not, stood the most hideous monstrosity I have ever seen, so huge, its’ horrendous face clad in fur, peering in at us.  My mother once told me, well, umm, my instincts passed onto me from my mother told me SWIM!  HIDE!  RELEASE BUBBLES!

Snapshot:  Out of my way Jack!  Move it Jill!  Well that’s what you get for being slow.  Every fish for itself!  Move over, there’s room for one more!

The cloth laden beast grasped my home in its malformed appendages and pulled it out of the water.  Can you say utter chaos?  I almost believed the sandwich board Jill used to wear around that read “The end is dry”.  The goliath ripped the roof off and then dumped us head over fin, into…

A big white sea filled with others of my kind.  Thousands of my kind, from different mothers, with different spot patterns.  Granted, many were screaming and hiding and I can’t really blame them as our house did just get capsized by a leviathan, but I knew we were on the verge of something great.  For one thing, if I chose, I didn’t have to sleep sandwiched by my brothers, and for another, I could swim!

 “Brothers, Sisters” I shouted.  “This is one small swim for Chinook, and one giant swim for Chinook kind!  Gather round and I shall tell you my vision.”

Unfortunately they were too busy hiding, but, not every fish can be a super intelligent Chinook fry.  Then the light grew dim and our home began to move.

Most of my brothers and sisters were starting to calm down.  There is something about a wave pool that’s just so relaxing.  Suddenly a hatch, here to for unknown, opened and out we all went down the water slide until splashdown, into the massive place I now call home.

Snapshot:  Queue Wipeout by the Surfaris.  Fish in Bermuda shorts and shades, Hula skirted salmon, lays, a fishy festival of fun!

By day’s end, our first actual day in the sun, the world was our oyster, and we found our new home was the pearl.  8 square meals, oxygen galore, a flow to die for, seasons, light cycles, protection from predators, and 100,000 new friends (all named Jack, Jill and Jenny).

Text by Jeremy Sommer

Photos by Angela Feldmann

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