What is this??

So I found this old draft of a post that I began on April 23 of 2009. It was called "The Story of the Anomalous Salmon". It is not finished, but I thought I'd share it anyway.



Everyone knows that salmon are born to live a short life, in which they will make two epic journeys, and then parish. Salmon are a monotonous species; they are born in a river, they swim to the ocean, they swim back to where they were born, and then they die. What's the point of this? Why don't they do something more meaningful with their lives? Why do they all feel that after laying eggs, life is not worth living? Imagine if humans were like that. They would wait years until they matured, then fulfill their dream of having children. As soon as their first child was born, they would just say, "Ok, time to die now, good luck kid." The human species would cease to exist.

In a rural insignificant stretch of river somewhere in California, a young salmon named Frederick Augustus Walter, (or at least that is what his name would have been, had his mother cared to name him before she dropped dead), was making his first journey of his life, to the pacific ocean. There were thousands of others swimming with him, and that was just his family. He had a strange feeling that he would never forget the place of his birth, even though every few seconds he forgot what he was even thinking about before. All he knew was that after spending a few years in this river, he was tired of it and felt like moving on to bigger things, and somehow he just knew that somewhere there was a huge ocean where he could spend the rest of his life maturing.

Frederick reached the ocean eventually, not quite sure how long he had been traveling. It was cold, and very intimidating with it's currents and waves, but there were many others like him, and to his surprise, even older salmon. He swam up to one, hoping he could ask about something that had been on his mind for the last three seconds.

"Sir," he began, "Do know why we exist?"

"Exist? What does that mean?" replied the gruff old Salmon.

"You know, why are we here?"

"To grow up of course! And because this is a nice place. So much water. I always knew there was a place like this, after those horrid years cooped up in that river bed. I'll never go back! NEVER!" declared the old salmon. Frederick felt downcast. His question hadn't been answered. His days in the ocean were long, (what he didn't know was that they were actually years), and he grew more and more everyday. He had grown to love the ocean, for it's sense of freedom and diversity. The old salmon was getting even older, and looked about ready die at any moment. It was now late summer, about to change into fall.

"It's a lovely day in the ocean," mumbled the old salmon.

"Yes, at least we're not in that river anymore," Frederick added. The old salmon's eyes grew wide.

"River, you say? There really is such a place?" Frederick blinked in confusion.

"Well, yes, don't you remember? You hated it there."

"NONSENSE! If I could just see that river one more time, I'de die happily." With that, the old salmon departed upstream, allong with thousands of others. As he left, he called back, "Do not fear, your time will come!"

Frederick was very confused, but kept in mind what the old salmon had said. At least for the next three seconds.



So there it is. What do you think will happen to Frederick?