Once upon a time, there was an angelfish.  She was the only angelfish, and as you know, fish of different species don’t speak the same language, so she could find no good conversations to pass the time or give her life meaning.  It didn’t stop her from talking to the local octopus, the pair of moray eels that squeezed together into a single frozen magma crevice, or even the crevice itself.  But none of them replied, and after a time, the novelty of hearing her own voice echoing in the starry void grew bland and grey.  She longed for a colorful symphony of meaning, words weaving harmonies and dissonances, something different from her thin monochromatic melody.  

On a day grayer than most, she was lying on the bottom of the ocean, not quite belly up but not far from it, when she heard a voice.  Not the meaningless babel of other fish, or the slow drumbeats of the whales, or that idiot static of the crashing waves, but a voice.  A voice singing an aria, a voice singing to her.  This voice praised her yellow skin, the black and white accents that arpeggiated her form, the gossamer translucence of her supple fins, the gleaming c-sharp of her deep black eyes.  She sang a reply, and their voices merged in a duet that vibrated higher and higher until it lifted out of the water, out of the atmosphere, and into the stars.  You can see the resonating outline of their forms, their fins fluttering in the stellar winds and their mouths almost touching as they sing together, a song to illuminate the galaxy.

~ Laura K. Secor