1. It had been a game for quite some time. Whenever Levy was born some two weeks ago, the
other three guys in the bowl had circled around him and told him phony stories of “Black Bowls”,
where they said that fish are “swallowed whole and thrown into nothingness when they become
the only fish left in the bowl”.
“It’s the universe’s way of putting you out of your misery,” one of them would explain
while suppressing a smirk. “No fish in his right mind wants to live the rest of his life alone in a
fish bowl, so the bowl will just painlessly wipe out the existence of the last guy standing,”
another one added. Hearing this, Levy naively took it as a warning; he did not want to be the
last guy to go. Knowing his fear, the older fish began to conspire the same trick that they had
pulled on many young fish before. Beside the fish bowl that they were currently swimming in,
was an identical one whose presence couldn’t be noticed unless you were looking for it; they
knew Levy had not noticed the second bowl since being born.
Then, while Levy was taking a nap, the three older fish jumped quietly, one-by-one, into
the second bowl, leaving Levy alone. They watched with laughing eyes, waiting for him to wake
up. A few hours later, once the light in the room had faded into night, Levy’s eyes began to lazily
crack open. A then their size doubled as he frantically swimmed in circles, blindly looking for the
other fish.
“THIS IS WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT! I’VE BEEN SWALLOWED BY A
BLACK BOWL!!” he shouted. Suddenly, a light-switch was flipped on by a human in the room
and Levy could again see. He noticed three blurred, orange figures off in the distance and his
expression fell into a awed curiosity. To him, the sight was absolutely angelic.
“I’m in Heaven! Angel friends, I’m coming!!” Levy shouted. And he took a giant leap out
of the bowl and down into the other.