Like a Fish out of Water

 

If I were a fish, I’d never bite some dangling hook with a squirmy worm on it.  If fish is truly brain food, like I’ve always been told, then you’d think they’d be smart enough to know that the worm is hiding a sharp barb, from which there is no escape, and the moment you bite down on it, your fate is sealed. 

You’ll be pulled by your lip through the water until you reach the surface.  It is at that point you will begin to suffocate.  You’ll not be able to yell or even change your facial expression, letting the human at the other end of the fishing line know that you are in trouble. 

With no regard to your feelings, they will clumsily pull the hook from your lip and then toss you into some bucket, where flop as you might, you’ll never get out.  It is there you will expire with that stunned look still on your face. 

Your remains will either be cut up and cooked over fire or if you’ve lived a long, successful life. You might be mounted to a board and hung up on the wall of some office.  It’s there you’ll be subjected to cigar smoke and elaborate tales of the struggle you put up, and that story will grow as time passes.

Now I will tell this same story but with a slight interruption.  Imagine if you will, as the caught fish is being pulled to the surface, he hears his friend sing…

 

“Ground control to Major Tom.  Ground control to Major Tom.  Take your protein pill and put your helmet on. Check ignition and may God’s love be with you.”

 

“This is Major Tom to Ground Control.  I’m stepping through the door, and I’m floating in a most peculiar way. And the stars look very different today.

 

For here, am I laying in a tin can.
Far above our world.
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do…”

 

“Can you hear me Major Tom?

       Can you hear me Major Tom?

Can you hear me Major Tom?”