Once upon a time, in a land far away, there once was a rice farmer who lived by the river that flowed from the far Mountain.

He was a simple, pragmatic man, who worked every day of every season without rest. His hands were leathery and gnarled. His skin was burnt and brown. His back was crooked and stiff. But the farmer was long accustomed to such ailments, and even proud of their burden. They were a testament of his life and trade, passed down to him by his father, and his fathers before him.

He lived by only a few tenets: to provide for his family, to work without rest, and to raise his children to live as he did. All other thoughts or notions that might have once entertained his mind at a younger, more fanciful age, had been set aside and disregarded for so long that they had faded then forgotten entirely.

As such, the farmer, now at the twilight of his prime, gave very little thought to the concepts of enlightenment, morality, or destiny, and scoffed at those who committed their lives to the pursuit of poetry or music. What advantage could be gained by their knowledge? Such subjects were insignificant by nature.

He could tell when the earth had awakened to spring and was ripe for planting by the feel of it beneath his feet. He could anticipate the weather from the ache in his bones and the taste of the wind. He could smell disease in his crops while it lay in just a single stalk. These were things worth learning. These were the true skills. While his life perhaps could not be said to be one of leisure, it was only by the possession of such knowledges that he could make it a life without need, and this gave him great pride.

One morning, when the sun was just beneath the horizon and the sky glowed with its arrival, the farmer set out onto his fields to examine his crops in the pristine purity of the fresh day. As he walked, the air was cool and sweet in his lungs, the earth soft beneath his feet, and he revelled at the quiet and calm of the coming dawn.

But as he neared the edges of his paddies by the river, a light, tinkling voice spoke suddenly from nearby.

“What a peculiar creature you are!”

Startled out of his reverie, the farmer searched about for the owner of the most unexpected voice, but to no avail. The stalks of rice were at the peak of their height, nearly ready to harvest. Any manner of person or creature could be hidden amongst them, and remain so with only the slightest effort.

“Who are you to trespass onto another’s land and insult them without even so much as a proper greeting?” he called.

At this, the voice burst into strange, bubbling peals of delighted laughter, the likes of which the farmer could not recall having ever heard before.

“My humblest apologies, good stranger,” the voice replied, once its humor had subsided. “It was not my intent to offer offense of any shape or form. Indeed, it was wholly unknown to me that you and I could speak with any sort of mutual understanding at all! I was simply speaking aloud that which I found you to be, though clear to me now just how discourteous it was for me to do so.”

The farmer, curious at only by the voice’s unusual tone but also its curious manner of speech, followed its sound out of his fields and down to the river’s edge.

“But as for having intruded upon your lands,” it continued, as the farmer at last came into view. “I am afraid I must argue my innocence, and am sure you will come to agree. For I have trespassed no land.”

The farmer’s mouth fell open in disbelief.

The owner of the voice was an enormous sleek fish, covered from head to tail in large shimmering scales that gleamed like mother of pearl. As wide and as tall as a grown man, it floated in the middle of the great river and stared back at the farmer with open curiosity in its large luminescent eyes. Its great tail, still visible beneath it in the river’s murky waters swayed powerfully from one side to the other as it swam idly and easily in place despite the currents.

“Is it customary amongst your kind to greet another so open-mouthed?” the fish asked with sincere curiosity. It opened its mouth wide in an attempted imitation of the farmer.

“Fish,” said the farmer, weakly.

“I am,” it replied, with pride. Then it paused. “Or I was. It may be that I have become something else entirely now, now that I am what I am.” It thought for a moment, surprised. “How unexpected. Now that I have discovered the thought within me, I admit to now finding beneath it a measure of sorrow. I am no longer what I used to be. How regretful it is to have left such a thing behind without notice or farewell.”

But the farmer, still dazed, did not have the ears to hear the fish’s words.

“A fish,” he repeated himself. “Have I passed away in my sleep and awoken in the afterlife? A fish speaks to me with the speech and reason of men.”

At this the creature laughed at the farmer’s bewilderment, though not unkindly. “Truly the strangeness of our circumstance cannot be overstated!” it said. “But know, friend, that it is also as such for me. Now that I am as I am, it is as if the entire world has become a wide and endless wonder.”

“But how has such a thing come to pass?” the farmer asked. “How is it that you are capable of such a feat? Are you alone in your possession of such knowledge? Or perhaps are you the first of a new species yet multiplying beneath the surface?”

Here the fish sighed. “Regretfully, I cannot answer any of your questions with any assuring amount of certainty. I believe I am alone in my awareness and speech. Or at least, I have not yet found any others whom I could call brothers or sisters in likeness.”

“But as for how I came to be as I am, I will share all I know. Listen, friend, and let us ponder on it together, for it is a tale without substance or song.”

“For as long as I can remember, I have been like any of my brethren, and ours is a desultory existence. Born in the waters of the river’s genesis, we spend our lives travelling back and forth between river and sea. We go from need to need, want to want, moved by impulses beyond our contemplation or contention, and bound by fate and blood to follow in the great journey of our ancestors.”

“One day, during our season of return, my brethren and I started our way up the river to reach the waters of our birth. Now this particular passage of our journey is a fearsome ordeal. The currents we fight against are swift and strong, and those who would prey upon us are many, fierce of feather and fang. Only the fastest and the most fortunate survive. As such, as we near this trial, it is necessary for us to consume anything and everything we come across that bears even the most remote possibility of providing nourishment and strength.”

“It was only by a stroke of luck that I happened to notice a small red mass floating down through the river towards me, and though I cannot say why, it beckoned to me. It called to me as powerfully as that which calls me from river to sea. It beseeched me, begged me to devour it, to imbibe it, to take it in me. At very nearly the same instance, my brethren and I, for they too felt its pull, leaped our way forward with a frenzied strength. But having noticed it before the rest, this humble fish arrived upon it first, whereupon I consumed it immediately, and continued on my mindless way.”

“But as we swam up the river, leaping over one barrier after another, great changes began to take place within me. I felt first a strength like I had never felt before. Suddenly I was leaping over each new obstacle with only the slightest effort, and leaving my kin far behind. The power! The ease! Before I knew it I was revelling in my own strength, marvelling at it even as I wielded it as if I were born to it. Suddenly the great river seemed all at once so narrow, and my brethren, so small. But as even as my elation at my newfound strength died down, I felt something completely new and remarkable grow inside of me. Strength, I had always known and understood the shape of. But here, here was a thing that I had never felt before, not once, in my dull life. Here was something wholly wonderful, and wild, and heretofore unknown.”

“What was this thing?” the farmer asked, immersed in the fish’s tale despite himself.

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It smiled a warm, cheerful, silvery smile. “A question.”

“What am I doing? I wondered to myself. Though you may be disappointed that it wasn’t at first a more profound question in the manner of wondering on the nature of what I was, or the purpose of my existence, I can assure you with absolute recollection that this was the very first question that came to my mind.”

“But even as I asked the question to myself, I realized that I was not truly asking myself what I was doing, for that could not be any less apparent. The question beneath the question was why was I acting as I was. Even as I asked, a part of me marvelled that such a thing could be asked in such a way, and the moment this thought came upon me, I stopped everything I was doing. Unsure of what it was I should do or why it should be done, I watched the rest of my brethren, or they that had once been my brethren, make their way past me and up the river.”

“Bereft of my purpose by the awakening of my reason, I stayed as I was without moving for a day and night. I wondered on the current of life I had so mindlessly followed, and how now I should shape my fate now that it was my own. But my mind was yet young and the river around me was devoid of any semblance of sentience near enough to mine to help enlighten me or discuss with me these matters I now found so consuming. And so I decided to journey back into the ocean and deeper waters where I hoped I might find more opportunities to do so.”

Here the fish smiled again.

“Then to my delight and my surprise, my friend, I found you! A scarce three days into my journey. A being that speaks and reasons much in the way I do, despite the differences of our circumstances.”

“And what a good fortune it was, friend,” said the farmer, who had composed himself during the fish’s story and gathered his thoughts. “Who knows how long you might have wandered the waters alone, seeking what you might not find?”

“It is only too true,” the fish replied happily. “Which is why I am so pleased to have found you, and to have heard your voice and comprehend the subtle meanings within it. Could there ever be a doubt that our crossing has been wrought by heaven’s hand? Please, once again, accept my most humble apologies for the perceived insult earlier this morning, for truly it was not my intention to so slight you, so unaccustomed am I to the manners of your kind.”

“Think nothing of it, friend,” the farmer replied warmly. “I also have much to apologize for, gaping as I was without a thought for comment or reply. For truly, I have never seen your like before.” Here he paused. “But if I may say so, though you are certainly strange, it cannot be denied that you are also a singularly beautiful creature.”

The fish, thrilled from its first conversation with another, all but preened at the farmer’s flattery. “Am I? Am I truly? I must confess, the thought has never crossed my mind.”

“It is beyond question,” the farmer assured. “Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if you were the most beautiful thing to be found beneath the surface of all waters, be they the rivers or seas.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know about that,” said the fish, shyly. “The ocean is an endless domain, full of beings both big and small that even I have yet to come across.”

“But surely you must stand at the very pinnacle when it comes to sheer beauty?” the farmer asked. “Or at least very near it. What could there possibly be that could even hope to match the incandescence of your beauty?”

“Oh the oceans are full of all manners of creatures,” said the fish with a serious, yet timid voice. “I have seen the living mountain, gliding through the depths with its dozen milky eyes and a hundred long arms. I have seen the great serpents draped in their scaled robes of every color. I have heard the songs that are sung ceaselessly beneath the waves of the world’s edge. Even in my mindless travels, I have come across such things that even now I still wonder if they were mere memories of a dream, and not instances of passing in the waking world.”

“To think that such a realm existed beside ours,” the farmer marvelled softly, almost as if to himself.

“I am not even a drop of rain before all that it is and holds,” the fish agreed.

“How extraordinary,” said the farmer.

“You seem so surprised,” the fish noted. “Is it not the same for your world?”

“Well, certainly our world has its wonders,” the farmer replied. “Indeed, I remember marvelling at such things when I was young. So much so that I would run out each day in my excitement to discover yet another,” mused the farmer “But if we are to be honest, I must admit they all seem so commonplace to me now. I suppose I grew, as all living beings do. Wondrous delight became as clothes of my youth, too colorful and too bright to suit the responsibilities I had assumed. The distant Mountain that once stirred my heart, remained a Mountain and the river remained a river.”

“I can’t say I completely understand what you’re talking about,” said the fish. “But it seems a sad thing.”

“It is our way of life, friend,” the farmer replied. “Joy or sorrow have little to do with anything. They will not feed or clothe my family. They will not shelter us from the storms. Such things are only accomplished by the solemn steady work of my hands. Such things are the harvest I reap from the stalk of my labors.”

“All the same,” said the fish. “It still seems a sad thing.”

“Yes,” said the farmer, uncertain of how to respond. “Perhaps.”

Just at that moment, the first rays of the day’s sun broke over the distant Mountain and swept soundlessly over the land. The wind stirred, and the long stalks of rice lifted and swayed in the beams of morning light.

“What is that?” asked the fish, from the low surface of the river.

“That is the sun as it breaks over the Mountain,” the farmer replied, lowering his hat against the light.

“Do you mean to say that you have seen the sun?” asked the fish, in awe. “Oh how deeply I envy you at this moment, friend! Tell me, what does it look like? In my few awakened days, I have imagined a great bright line as long as the sky itself, making its way across the heavens.”

The farmer laughed. “That would certainly be a sight to see. But no, my friend. Rather, imagine a great figure in the sky, no bigger than the size of my head to your eyes.”

“So small?” the fish wondered.

“Just so,” the farmer assured. “But also imagine, if you will, that it burns with such brilliant flame that no living thing could bear to gaze into it for too long, lest they be blinded. It is the crown jewel of heaven, and worthy of the name.”

“How I would love to see such a thing with my own eyes,” the fish swooned.

The farmer looked at the fish with a curious shadow in his eyes. “For all the world, why shouldn’t such a thing be done, friend?”

“How could it?” the fish asked. “I have no limbs with which to easily leave the waters, and even if I had, I would surely drown in your air before long.”

“Before we met, your words may have been the truth,” said the farmer. “But now that I am here, I am certain such a thing could be done.”

“You would help me?” the fish asked, eyes wide with happy surprise.

“Oh most assuredly,” said the farmer. “Sizable though you may be, it would not require much strength for me to lift you out of the water long enough for you to behold the sun. It would be but the briefest of moments, after which I could return you back into the water, safe and unharmed.”

“I would greatly appreciate such a thing, friend,” said the fish, swimming over without hesitation. “Truly, I would. How the heavens have blessed me with the fate of meeting you! Though I do not yet know how I would repay such a gesture, I swear by them that I shall not fail to do so, whatever the cost.”

The farmer smiled. “Do not let the thought burden you overlong.”

As soon as the fish came near the farmer, the farmer seized the fish in his arms and hauled it bodily out of the water, and up off the river bank. The fish, with only a mind for the sun, panted in the thin air and heaved about, searching for it until at last it caught sight of the dawn.

“Beautiful,” it gasped. “How beautiful. To think I would see such a thing so soon in my waking life.”

For a moment, as the farmer continued to climb his way up the river with the fish in his arms, the creature did not speak. Instead, it watched the rising sun in silent, teary eyed wonder - the pink and yellow splashed sky breaking into purest blue, the Mountain bowed beneath it, and the endless green of the wetlands swaying as they danced in its light.

“My friend,” it panted at last to the farmer, who continued, still, to make his way away from the river. “Every fiber of my being thanks you. But I am afraid the time to return has come. Even as I speak, my strength wanes within me. We must not stay away overlong.”

But the farmer did not respond, and continued walking away from the river with the fish in its arms.

“Friend, I’m afraid I really must insist,” said the fish. A thrill of pale gray fear touched its heart for the first time in its awakened life, and hastened his words. “My friend, I would not bear to think on what might happen if I am not soon returned.”

“I am sorry, my friend,” said the farmer. “Though I cannot claim to be overjoyed, it is as I said. Joy or sorrow will not feed my family, and I have many mouths to feed. A creature of your size will fill their bellies for a great, long time. I would rather were that you were a simple, dumb, fish flailing ignorantly into oblivion, than to be so aware of your approaching fate. But there are things I cannot change, and I must do what needs to be done.”

With that, the farmer said no more and made his long, slow way back to his farm. The fish cried and pleaded, but the farmer deafened his ears to its words and continued home until they weakened, faded, and finally stopped.

That evening, the rice farmer and his family enjoyed the most lavish dinner that any of them had ever eaten in their lives. The smell of it as it cooked over their fire was fragrant and clean. The taste of it was succulent and sweet. All the family’s members ate until they were bursting, and some more for even then.

When at last his children gathered to sleep around him and asked him just how he had managed to procure such a specimen, he simply told them not to ask mundane questions. They too, he said, would certainly come to be able to do such things once they grew older.