... nel lago del cor ... - Dante
Once upon a time there was a lake full of unhappy fish. This was surprising, not so much because the water was just the right temperature and full of good things to eat, or because sunken logs gave plenty of hiding or lurking places along the lake bed, or because the local blue herons were particularly nearsighted, but because no fish out of air had ever been unhappy before. Water, from which all life came, washes away all cares and troubles, which explains the commonness of bathtubs, showers, and jacuzzis and the rarity of mermaid sightings. There wasn't even a word in their aeons-old language to describe their condition - some said "hungry" instead, or "drowning" (which for them meant "trapped out of water".) Some blamed it on the insects gliding on the surface, some on the the water weeds or the light filtering through them; a few (in whispers, for it was heretical - as best fish can whisper) held that the water itself was at fault.
Then one day there was a disturbance from an inlet where a little pier waded into the water. It was the quietest of disturbances, consisting of a single ripple on the lake's surface preceded by the sigh of each unhappy fish as the ripple passed above (for waves move faster in water than upon it). No worm-disguised hook had descended from the pier in many generations, so a few fish were there to see the reason for the ripple: a small human toe had touched the water and been hastily withdrawn (for the toe's owner found the lake's temperature, while perfect for fish, a bit cold for a little girl.) As each fish sighed, it seemed to exhale from its gills a certain tension or anxiety, and somehow they were no longer unhappy, except that having been released from unhappiness, they could almost imagine what delight or pleasure or joy might be.
Years passed, and the fish continued in this state of undiscontentedness, not rejoicing in the oxygen-rich water or fat bugs or stupid herons, but not muttering about anything either. Then one summer there was a tremendous splashing from the pier. The fish looked up from their various activities in alarm, thinking an alligator or penguin or porpoise, some monster from a feverish fish's nightmare, had launched itself into the lake. But it was just a girl who had dived in and was swimming smoothly and cleanly (by human standards) along the shoreline, raising (to a fish's ears) an unaquatic racket. They watched, half-amused by all the effort going to produce such slow progress, half-relieved that they weren't about to become lunch, half-touched to have such eager company. And when, after a little while, the girl climbed back onto the pier and the ripples in the water had echoed off the far shore and meshed and faded away, the fish found, one by one, that amusement and relief and fellow-feeling too had meshed into a sense of harmony, of belonging, of rightness, concepts which they spent many seasons trying unsuccessfully to describe. And what could any person, even the wisest of poets, say to explain what had happened beyond, "The fish had become happy"?
Hardly anyone notice the change - few recognize the sound of fish laughing. The fish teased the herons unmercifully, or tried to, but the birds had long since decided to eat only frogs and just ignored them. One day a girl stood on the pier (she'd sprained her ankle playing soccer and wore a cast). She would have liked to take a swim, but took delight in the flashes of light and splashes of water as the fish, playing and dancing, intersected the surface of the lake. She left the next day for school, so it went unremarked when a terrible storm flooded the lake and washed the fish into a nearby river system, in which they erred and wandered down to the sea, filled with ferocious jellyfish and moray eels and dolphins. The salt water stung their eyes and gills, the few bugs that could be found tasted foul, but worst of all was the rememberence of happy times now that they were miserable.
One day a plane flew low over the ocean where the fish were wandering, lost as someone without a lantern in a dark forest far from the straight path. One of the passengers noted the pattern of sunlight glinting off the surface of the water. It reminded her of a day she had stood watching a lakeful of fish dancing in joy, though this time the movements were slow, at once more strictly ordered and more chaotic. The airport was near the coast, and after the plane landed she made her way to the shore near where she had seen the fish. Standing on a small bluff she was just able to see the flashes of crimson light as the huge setting sun gazed at her above the mournful dance.
The girl climbed down to the beach. She saw that a sea turtle had just laid its eggs in the sand and was flopping towards the surf. She took a bottle of white-out from her purse and wrote the initial of her first name on the turtle's back; it looked like a hand signing "ok". When the turtle swam by the fish, they followed it, though they didn't know why, and though they were afraid to leave the littoral waters and brave the depths of the sea. And indeed they saw many terrifying things, but the turtle protected them. And after a year it lead them back to the place they had started following it. Standing barefoot with little waves curling around her ankles was a girl. She walked along the beach; the fish, marvelling, followed close behind. The girl walked all night, and as the sun rose, she came upon a river. As the fish breathed in the clean sweet water, they knew they were on the right path to the place they belonged. One of them looked backwards towards the sea, like a shipwrecked sailor might after struggling onto the shore. The girl waded upstream, sometimes having to climb up the riverbank to avoid obstacles, but always returning to guide the fish where they might go astray. At last she stopped and, reaching her hand into the water, gestured upwards. It took the fish a while to understand that she was beckoning them out of the water. They hesitated for a moment, but their long journey had brought them the courage to brave even the empty air. One by one they leapt out of the water onto the muddy shore, wriggled up into wet grass, then gasping slid forward into the cool water of their own lake.
They never saw the girl again, but having come safely home they had no need to. Whether they are still dancing in three-dimensional patterns in that lake, or if they had other adventures, someone else must tell you, but perhaps you will find out for yourself some summer evening, watching the surface of a lake under the light of innumerable stars.