Sunsets and Silencers

 The Fisherman Who Asked The Sea
                                    
Once there was a fisherman whose fishing had gone bad for a while. He finally saw no other solution than to go down to the shore and ask the sea itself. So he did.

"Hello sea! Do you have any fish today?"

"Not until next Monday," the sea replied, "but if you like we can play in the meantime!"

Gratefully the fisherman accepted.  Playing would do him good, he thought. Besides, it would be a nice change from fishing. The sea and the fisherman played many games.  They played hide and seek, farmer and the milkmaid, and more quiet games, like chess. But when the fisherman had won the third chess game in a row, the sea got furious and drowned him.

But the fisherman didn't want to die, so he decided not to. Instead, he found that he was deeply in love with the sea. He gathered some water lilies, offered them to the sea and asked if it wanted to marry him.

"Yes! I thought you'd never ask!" the sea answered.

The happy couple got married in the fisherman's boathouse. The wind held up and conducted the ceremony. They sold the bottom of the sea to a mining-company and bought a condo in Carmel.  There they lived happily for nineteen years until their marriage dried out.



And That's How We Came On Top Of Things
                      

"Okay Boss I'm up!  But I still don't get why you couldn't give it to me down on the plain!"
"Well Mo, I guess I wanted you to come closer to me!"
"I'm too old for climbing like this!  But never mind, let's get it over with!"
"Are you ready?  Here comes the first one!"
"Okay, I got it!  I took it in my right hand!"
"And here comes the second one!"
"One more?  Okay, I got it!  I took it in my left hand!"
"And get ready for the third!"
"Whoa!  You mean there's more?!"
"Yes!  There are four altogether, with ten commandments on each of them!"
"Well, I only got two hands, ya think my mother was an octopus?!"
"You have to innovate!  Think about Cleopatra, and carry the third one on your special purpose!"
"Well, I guess it's worth a try!"
"Are you thinking?"
"Oh yeah!"
"Here it comes! Ready?"
"Oh yeah!"
"See? It works!"
"Sure does! But how 'bout the fourth one?"
"You have a straight back, Mo, I'll put it right here on top of your head!"
"O'boy!  This is getting way over my head!"
"Start walking!  I know you can do it!"
"Well, if I must ..."
"You must! You must!"
"Well, if I can ..."
"You can! You can!"
"Hey! Check it out! I can! I can!"
"You are doing fine, kid!"
"Oops!  Oh oh!"
"Clumsy fool!  You dropped three of them into pieces!!"
"I just remembered that Cleopatra is dead!  And tryin' to catch that one, I dropped the ones in my hands as well!  But look Boss, I saved the one on my head!"
"Clumsy fool!  Now there are only ten commandments left!"
"But that's enough, Boss!  Really, it is!"
"But I liked number seventeen: No Tailgating!"
"But Boss, cars aren't invented yet!"
"Oh no?  But how about number thirty-four: Don't Bring Pork Chops To A Jewish Wedding!"
"But that goes without saying, Boss!"
"So you think ten are enough?!"
"Yeah Boss, I'm sure it is!"
"Hm ...oh, very well then.  But if they screw it up down there, I'll hold you responsible!"

Mikael Persson is an industrial worker who loves to read and write in the English language, and his aim is to make a living on his writing one day. So far eight of his stories have been published in Dream Forge, Long Story Short Magazine, The Online Cynic Magazine and Uptown books chapbook series.