Week 9 Story – The Leopard and the Fish

This is what the anatomy of fish looked like before fish were banished from land. 

(Source: Walking Fish by Hanyothman via DeviantArt)

There once was a kingdom named Calabar in which the most peaceful beings lived with no ill intentions towards other, as this was the mandate given by the benevolent King Eyo to all of those that lived in the lands that he reigned over. One day, in the woods of Calabar, a leopard and his wife were roaming around and while the leopard's wife was off foraging for berries and leaves, he began to build a fire that they could sleep by that night. While the leopard was searching for firewood, he felt something crack under his paw and he heard a muted scream. He lifted his paw to see what had cracked, only to see that it was a fish that was sleeping under some leaves.

A sense of panic began to fill in the leopard, as he knew that fish were known for their kind and peaceful nature, as they just roamed the woods without bothering a soul. The leopard was terrified of what his wife would think when she found out what he did. Would she think that he was a murderer? Would she report him to the royal authorities? The leopard knew that he had to hide what he had done so he quickly built a large fire and threw the fish in and went to go search for his wife to keep her occupied while the fish’s corpse burned to ash. While the leopard was out searching for his wife, she was searching for him, only to come back to a campfire without him in sight. “Oh great! My husband has already started cooking our dinner. The yam that he left roasting looks like it’s almost done”, the leopard’s wife said as she used a stick to pull what she thought was a vegetable out of the fire. The aroma of the roasted yam filled her nostrils, making her mouth water, as she had never smelt something so delicious before.” She took a bite of the yam and was absolutely awestruck with how good it tasted, not being able to withhold from eating the rest of it. 

The leopard returned back to the campfire just in time to see his wife eating the last of the fish's body and he screamed, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”. Puzzled with his outrage, his wife said “I am just eating the delicious yam you made for our dinner.” The leopard fainted, explaining to his wife what exactly she had done after he had regained consciousness. The leopard’s wife could not come to terms with what she had done, as eating another being was unimaginable. It was even harder to come to terms with the fact that the leopard knew that nothing would satisfy her hunger like the fish she had because it was flavored like nothing that she had eaten before, and it had kept her full for so long in comparison to her usual meals.

She had to talk to somebody about what she had done so she went and meet with longtime friend, a beggar that lived in the center of Calabar. The leopard went to go visit the beggar woman and confessed her wrong doings, only to pique the curiosity of the woman, as she had not eaten in days and she was dying to know what about the fish tasted so heavenly and why it kept the leopard’s stomach full for so long. 

The next day, the leopardess saw the beggar in the woods. “What are you doing here?”, she asked the beggar. “Oh nothing, but I am going to go home now. I will see you later”, the beggar said as she briskly walked away from the leopardess, holding a bag that contained small things that were squirming and pushing at its seams.

The next day, the leopardess saw the beggar in the woods, but with the beggar were about twenty other people, all scourging the grounds of the woods, looking for something. “What are you looking for?”, the leopardess asked a man that was yielding a bow and arrows. “For fish, of course. Haven’t you heard? You can eat them and they are heavenly!”

The next day, the leopardess saw hundreds of people in the woods and they were all looking to capture fish using all kinds of weapons and traps. After a week since eating the fish, the leopardess didn’t see anymore fish crawling on the grounds of the woods. Every person she encountered was on a pursuit for fish and they were getting more and more frustrated over time because it was getting harder to find fish, as everybody was trying to secure a supply before there were no fish left to eat. The leopardess had to do something about this frenzy or all fish would be gone forever so she went to King Eyo. 

As she stood before the golden throne of King Eyo, she said, “Your highness, I am sure you have heard of this craze for fish, as greed is causing those we live amongst to kill others that they walk on this earth with. Despite the fact that this cannibalistic behavior goes against the rules of our society and nature, what we’re seeing is a tragedy of the commons, in which every person is so scared that they will not get to indulge in the experience of eating unimaginably tasting fish, that they are all going crazy to kill as many as they can before their neighbor does. This is a slippery slope. First, man will want to kill fish, and then they will want to kill me for feast and maybe then, even you!” 

The idea that the king’s own livelihood would be under threat struck him with fear, but he also had tasted the fish and knew he did not want to live a life in which he would never eat fish again. Because of this, King Eyo banished all fish to live in water and to never be able to walk on land again without an assured death, solely for the fishes own protection. By exiling the fish into the water, the fish were at a safe distance from man in a territory that man was not acclimated to hunting in, and it was more difficult for fish to be caught, but not impossible. By the time that it took man the time to innovate methods of capturing fish with technology like boats and fishing rods, the fish were able to mate with each other and repopulate and they were protected from the greed of man by a barrier of the most powerful element of all.