Swimming Around Savoy Library -- A Fish's Tale

by Samantha St Amour-Gomes

Finley – that’s what those strange creatures staring at me from the other side of the glass wall call me. They are rather large creatures with huge eyes and walk around on two long limbs that don’t look like fins. I think I overheard someone call them humans once, but I’m not sure. All I know is that my fish friends and I live in some tiny ocean in a town called “Savoy Library” – at least that’s what the sign on the door says. I can’t reach the door, however, because I am surrounded by see-through glass walls that protect me. Sometimes when there’s a bunch of strange humans peering at me I poke the glass with my fin, just to ensure it’s not going to break on me.

Life inside these glass walls isn’t so bad though. One of the human creatures feeds me twice a day. I think she lives part-time in Savoy Library. I see her blurry image through the glass almost every day. Sometimes she sits behind a desk rapidly typing at a big square machine. Other times, she’s doing peculiar things to a bunch of big books. She scans them, re-labels them, and places them back on the shelves. There are a lot of these books in Savoy Library – it must be a reading town. Anyways, I like this strange human creature. Every morning she passes by the glass with her mouth showing lots of teeth. She whispers good morning to me and calls us her little friends. I like having a friend, especially one with food.

Uh-oh! It must be 10 o’clock! The most dreaded time of the day. A bunch of smaller human creatures enter Savoy Library, wearing matching white shirts and black bottoms. I don’t know why they all want to look the same – my friends and I are all different colours: yellow, orange, pink, and purple! Anyhow, these smaller humans are horrid – they bulge their eyes right against the glass and then… wait for it… they smash their fingers against it! TAP TAP TAP! Can you believe it? The water rapidly ripples and my friends and I scramble for cover. I flap my fin back and forth as fast as I can, but keep running into the glass wall. Finally I seek some coverage in a patch of seaweed. I think I’ll wait in here until the coast is clear. Catch you later!