"Come on son, I will teach you manning today."
Henry was very excited today. He was taking his son, John,
out for manning. Manning was very popular among fishes and Henry was a fish who
was quite good at it.
"Dad, what is manning?" asked John, flapping his
fins quickly and trying to keep up with his father.
"Manning is where humans enter the seas, and we catch
them" replied Henry.
"Dad, why do we do that?"
"It started as a revenge story, a few fishes were
caught in an activity that humans refer to as 'fishing' and their relatives
decided to catch a few humans. They used some seaweed and the humans got
entangled in the same and drowned. Since then, it has caught on and become quite
a hobby for many fishes. There are competitions as well. I have personally participated
in a few of them" said Henry proudly.
"But why do humans catch fishes via this 'fishing'
activity?"
"Well, it isn't really clear. I have heard stories from
a few fishes who have come back after having been caught. Primarily, it looks
like humans consume us as food, just like bigger fish eat smaller fish. However,
at the same time, some fishes have also reported that they were stored in
containers of different sizes. Humans would look at them and feed them. I
personally still don't know what to believe, given the contrast in the stories
- some stories we are being eaten and in other stories, we are eating food that
humans are giving us.”
“Interesting. Meanwhile are there other reasons for
manning?” asked John.
“Revenge is a primary factor. If not lost relatives, there
are many who call themselves environmentalists and are getting back at humans
for dumping all kinds of waste in the seas. Anyway, lets continue this
conversation later, this looks like a good spot for some manning. I will take
you through the basics.”
Henry got some seaweed out of his bag, he also carried
plastic bags that had been folded together to form ropes. While seaweed was his
preferred choice of tool for manning, owing to the increasing pollution and
availability of plastic in the sea, he had also started devising tools from
plastic. He gave some seaweed to John and taught him how to combine them
together, creating a web of plastic and seaweed in which human hands or legs
could get caught.
Henry and John sat for some time, patiently. Suddenly they
saw a human leg entangled in the bunch that John was holding.
“Come on son, slowly bring him in”, said Henry. He swam next
to John and slowly caught the seaweed himself. They slowly started pulling the
human.
It was a big human; Henry hadn’t caught many such ones. The
human resisted quite a bit. Henry waited for the right moment and gave a jerk,
they managed to bring the human down further.
That was when John saw the human – his legs, body, hands,
and face. The human had eyes just like he did. John could see the fear in his
eyes, he could see how the human’s face was slowly becoming blue, desperately
trying to go back up for some air. At that moment, it looked like the human was
begging for his life.
“Let go Dad” said John.
“What are you saying, son? We have almost got him.”
“Please Dad. Let him go!”
John let go of the seaweed. Henry pulled on for a bit but
eventually let go. He knew that he couldn’t bring him in alone. The human swam
up back to the surface. John looked at him and smiled.
“Why did you do that?” asked Henry.
“It didn’t feel right” said John.
“What does that mean, son?”
“I don’t know Dad. It just didn’t feel right.”
Henry and John quietly swam home. Once home, Henry kept his
equipment and just stared at it. He had picked up the sport after his dad had
been caught. He had never thought of it that way, he was catching human dads
and creating orphans up top. He had just got into it and never given it another
thought. He was proud of his son. He was sure that John was going to grow up to
be a nice fish. He decided to quit manning that day. He smiled.
Three months later, he was served up in an enthusiastic child’s plate of fish and chips.
