Gudmonsen And Celestine

They where the best of friends, a girl and her Swedish fish. Human
and Herring as thick as thieves. Celestine would rush home from work
and tell Gudmonsen all about her day and he would listen for three
seconds, forget what she had said and then listen for three seconds,
forget what she said and so on through out the tale. Gudmonsen always
forgot everything but it wasn't really his fault, what with him being a
fish. The one thing he never forgot was Celestine, he would swim around
excitedly in his tank when she came home and he was her guard fish when
she slept, or this is how he considered himself. He had never really
thought through what he would do if he were called to put his guard
fish skills into action, such as they where.

Neither where aware of the age gap, that whilst Celestine was only 28
and had acquired Gudmonsen as a mere sprat, he was now 76 fish years
old. A good innings for a fish but a short time for a human, he was
certainly past his sell by date for pickling. So it came as a surprise
to Celestine when she returned home from work one evening to find
Gudmonsen floating lifelessly on top of the water. At first Celestine
was strong and practical, draining the water from the small tap at the
bottom of the tank into a bucket. Looking out a shoebox to serve as a
coffin for her best friend. Then, as she looked down at glassy eyed
Gudmonson she began to cry, giant tears that sparkled with the memories
of their time together, ran down her cheeks and into the tank.

Some of the tears landed on Gudmonson, the memories and the scales
shimmering together in prism colors.

Suddenly there was a fish like cough (you have to have heard one to
recognise one) and a fishlike voice, "I was only taking a nap!"

Celestine was shocked and amazed and felt that her head was covered in
exclamation marks, "Gudmonsen, you can speak!"

"Only when my gills aren't full of water'" replied the herring with a
slap of his tail against the side of the tank.

"Thank goodness, thank goodness, I thought you had died."

"I will be dead soon if you don't fill up this tank dear
Celestine."

Quick as a very quick thing Celestine poured the drained water from the
bucket back into the tank and Gudmonsen swum about happily once
again.

"Why have you never spoken to me before? Asked Celestine.

Gudmonsen popped his head out of the water and said, "It's my memory,"
he sank, and then popped up again.

"By the time I've thought of something to say."

Sink and pop.

"I've forgotten what it."

Sink and pop.

"Was I was thinking about."

Sink.

Celestine was delighted, her best friend was defying everything she
understood about the world to communicate with her, "Why now Gudmanson?
What is so different that now you can remember?"

She waited for Gudmonsen to pop his head up again but he just swam
around in circles, looking amazed at everything he had looked at only
seconds before. She waited, asked more questions, his opinion on
things, what it was like to be a fish and more but there was never a
reply. Her amazing talking herring was just an ordinary herring again.
It didn't matter to her though; all that mattered was that he hadn't
left her, that she was not alone.

It was at this moment that Gudmonsen really did die, because life is
like that.