Pip's Expedition

You are standing at the start of a storytelling journey. Your responses will contribute to a story that will tell itself. The story will be made by many minds...woven into a pattern that no-one can foresee...the unthought tale…

There will be questions and challenges.

Let them echo in your memory. Use that memory as your starting point.

Challenge Number One

Please answer the following questions:

Cautious or risk-taking? < Pip chose Cautious

Nature or gadgets? < Pip chose Nature

Birds or fish? < Pip chose Fish

Arriving at a small hotel in the middle of the night, you take a room looking out over a river. In the morning you wake to the sound of rushing water. You open your window to look out.Someone is fishing by a river. They ask you for a story. What do you tell them and why?

Pip wrote

There’s so much life beneath the water isn’t there? As a child I lived in a part of the Midlands surrounded by canals. We were never far away from a canal - we would stumble across them whilst out for a walk or a drive. We would walk along their winding paths on the way to visit my grandparents at the weekend, or cycle as far as they would take us on hot summer days. And we would see a lot of fisherman, sitting in their deckchairs in a trance under their khaki fishing hats. Their poles and nets would block our path and my mum would always tell us to creep past quietly so as not to disturb the fish. Dad would sometimes strike up a conversation, always asking ‘Have you caught anything today?’ and sometimes they would hold up lines of dark, glistening, wriggling catches and I would be in awe and frightened all at the same time. I would stand shyly next to the box of writhing maggots listening to the grown ups talk, wondering if the maggots knew what they were there for.

We looked after a long line of coldwater and tropical fish growing up, giving them inventive names like Salt and Pepper , we had a Black Molly fish who we named… Molly and a silver fish that we named Silver. I remember my mum panicking when Silver got a piece of gravel caught in his mouth, he was convulsing for several minutes trying to spit it out. None of them stayed with us that long though. We held funeral upon funeral in the bathroom - I would scrunch up my eyes, shutting them tight whilst mum would flush the toilet. I would look down into the empty toilet bowl in complete disbelief that they were gone.

Then Bruce came along, unexpectedly. It was Summer, I was away at university and there was an end of year carnival being held. Students were milling about eating popcorn and candyfloss, seeing how long they could cling onto the mechanical bull for and getting lairy on the bumper cars. There was a hook-a-duck stall, a prize every time! Hanging up inside the stall were bags upon bags of tiny, orange goldfish, all hypnotically wiggling away. I was astonished, was that okay? Although the thought of having my own goldfish was a compelling one. We all hooked a duck and were presented with a fish. Walking back to our halls we laughed, ‘Where do I put it?’, ‘What can we feed it?’ and ‘How long do they live for?’. One by one everyone peeled off with a new dancing weight of responsibility in their hands. I rushed into the kitchen, found the largest bowl I could find and gently poured my fish into it. I walked into my room, ‘Where the hell did you get that?!’ my roommate exclaimed. I put the fish down on the desk and started to Google, ‘What can I feed a goldfish?’. Apparently, bread. I got a piece of bread from the kitchen and tore off little chunks to float into the water. I would go to the pet shop tomorrow and get everything I needed to care for this little goldfish called Bruce. If he survived the night.

And he did survive the night. Bruce was given a modest home with a rainbow castle. He graduated from university with me and we made the three hour trip back home to the Midlands in my grandad’s car. I held the tank on my lap the whole time - worrying about the vibrations of the car stressing him out and water sloshing everywhere when we hit bumps in the road. Once home, I bought him a tank mate - a squat, round thing with a beautiful fantail called Luna. He would chase her round and round the tank and nip at her flowing tail. I’m not sure they got along and sadly Luna did not last too long under Bruce’s reign. Queue another bathroom funeral and me staring down at the empty toilet bowl in horror.

I upgraded the tank - twice. Bruce just kept growing and growing. What once was a goldfish who was only a couple of centimetres long was now a majestic, muscular king. He was the length of my hand, from my middle finger to my wrist. In the end he lived to be an impressive 11 years old, finally passing away on the anniversary of the day I won him. After my fleeting experiences with fish growing up I didn’t realise fish could live that long. He had moved with me from university to my family home in the Midlands, then down to my first rented room in London. He moved again with me when I reached the milestone of buying my first flat in London, after all those years of saving. That was his final home. In the huge tank on the kitchen worktop. When I would cook he would watch me chopping vegetables. He would dance in the water when I waggled my fingers at him. Sometimes after feeding him I would dip a finger into the water. He would swim up to it and give it a little peck, wondering if it was food. Occasionally, when changing his water, I would dip my whole hand in and wait for him to swim past and brush up against me with his smooth scales. I felt a connection with my silent swimmer.

On the day he died I was at work and Tom was at home. I came home to a large brown towel draped over the tank, ‘Don’t look at him! I don’t want you to see him like this. It will only upset you.’ Tom was adamant. I had to fight the urge to check. Surely he was still swimming in the tank beneath the towel. Was he floating? Had he sunk? I could not believe it. We left him in his home for one last evening, the next day we would take him somewhere special.

I always knew I did not want another bathroom funeral. And I did not want Bruce buried. He was a water being and I wanted him to remain in water. My plan was for Bruce’s final resting place to be in the water below the willow tree in a Royal park. Tom put some of his tank water into a plastic tub and gently moved him from his tank to the box using a net. He wrapped the box in a small towel so I still could not see him and we left for the park. We arrived at sunset and the park was emptying. The colour of the sky was wonderful, it was orange - a deep orange, very similar to Bruce’s colours. I was amazed, ‘It’s like the park is welcoming him’. And there were very faint rippled clouds in the sky, making the sky look like water. At the willow tree, Tom bent down next to the water, I was still not to see Bruce. I watched his back as he carefully unwrapped the towel and opened the tub. Dusk was falling and I heard a trickle of water and a little splash as Bruce left us. Tom put some leaves into the water so I still could not see him. I knelt down next to the water, looking for him but not wanting to see him. I couldn’t see him. We spent some time there, missing him, feeling the loss of him and the sadness. We hugged each other, then walked away. I looked back at the dark shape of the willow tree in the dusk and wondered if he had really died.

The fisher nods and smiles and wipes a tear as the story unfolds.

‘Yes, we forget, each of the fish we catch has a history, a name, a life. In fact, I think you are probably the only person who would understand what I am about to tell you….

….I always come here just before dawn. It’s chilly, but once I’ve got my deck chair set up, and my line sorted out, I know that there’s fish just below the surface.

That’s what I did a few hours ago. It was still dark when I settled back into my deckchair, and I suppose no one would know I was there, in the shadow of the bridge. I even think I snoozed a little.

But I woke up pretty sharply when I heard a lot of splashing down in the river.

I leaned forward. I couldn’t quite see. But ….what I thought I saw was this - there were a lot of fish standing up on their tails...and someone...came towards the river and called to them….and then she jumped in with them...and became a fish too...I swear I saw it...a human shape disappearing into the water and then nothing but the swirl of a shoal of fish.

I practically jumped out of my deckchair. I didn’t know if I was sleeping or awake.

But then I heard some voices. They were talking low, but they were so fierce, so threatening, I shrank back into the darkness.

They were saying something about a piece of Jade, a stone. The fish had it and they wanted it. And they wanted more than the stone, they wanted revenge.

They muttered down by the water. Then they disappeared into the water as well.

I can tell you, I’m still shaking from the memory. But in the light of day I think it must have been a dream.

But now, listening to your story, I’m not so sure.

It’s something to catch fish and know fish from a distance. But now I think there are some fish in danger.

Like I say I’ve learned something from your story. I owe those fish something. I have to help them.

The only clue I have is the mention of Jade.

Please help me. How can I find those fish? Should I follow those fish or whoever they are?Or should I wait for them to return?