Fish Thaw

We stared at their pale, frozen bodies lying in the sink--soft, morbid slabs of meat. I had just finished brushing my teeth and was looking for the nail clippers when I walked through the kitchen and saw them. You joined shortly after.

I said, "Do you want to go outside?"

You said, "There's freezing rain."

I said, "Do you want to go to Goodwill? We could buy really big clothes and really undersized clothes. We put on the big clothes before bed and when we wake up we pretend we've shrunk in our sleep. Then we go look for an antidote at Wal-Mart and wake up the next morning wearing the undersized clothes. Then we say, "Oh no! We took too much!"

"I think one of the fish moved."

"I'll get a knife, just in case."

I got the big knife.

I said, "This makes me think about how I've never vanquished any of my enemies."

"What enemies?"

"Exactly. What's the point of having enemies if you can't vanquish them? I just wish I had a reason to ruin someone's life."

"I punched a kid in middle school. Just to watch him cry."

"I bet I could I vanquish you. If you gave me reason to."

"You couldn't vanquish me. You can't even open a bag of cereal without sending half the bag flying everywhere."

"Are you saying I couldn't vanquish my way out of a plastic bag? I could enroll in a group-training program. Like Weight-Watchers for murder."

"I'd just join too and make more friends than you. Then you'd have to join a lesser-known off-brand group that lacks proper funding and organization."

"You hurt my feelings. I'm going to stab this fillet of fish now."

"BOOP BOOP BEEP BOP BOOP! WE ARE ROBOTS!"

"I AM A FRENCH ROBOT! OUI OUI OUI FROMAGE! BEEP BOOP BOOP!"

And that's how the Fish Overlords came to absolute power.