The cage door closes.\nThe light is white. The coats of the humans are white. The building is white. Everything gleams with purity.\n\nYou are carried inside.
This is a story based on a dream.\nThe story is muddled. I am sorry for that. I have attempted to capture what I can remember. \n\nParts of this story are not very clear.\nBut I have called it [[Clarity]].
The film will not cooperate in your hands.\n[[The students are watching silently.]]
The wall is white. The wall is too high to climb. It looms. You try to turn.\n\nThe students in the auditorium watch the filmed explosions as they run faster and faster together into a blur.
The school gathers in the auditorium to see the film.\nSoundless explosions burst across the screen in a riot of light. \nThe students are silent.\nThe students must watch.\n[[The screen goes white.]]
You run without seeing in the bright sunlight.\nYou blunder into the lake.\n\nYou cannot see what hurts you.
The cages jolt, and yours falls. A wall grinds open and fills the dingy space with light.\nYour cage crashes open.\n[[Run.]]\n[[Or stay.]]
The fish are half replaced. It is very difficult. It is a special process, for which the fish are specially bred. Half the fish is replaced. The new fish is waxy and smooth. The old fish is rotten. Dead and rotten.\n[[The students watch the film unroll quietly]], light on emotionless faces.
The light is too dim to see clearly. A tooth glints in the [[dark]].
The fish is studded with shards of glass. [[Its eyes are watching you.]] [[Its mouth is open.]]
you hesitate and the man reaches out farther than you could have guessed and takes you and you struggle but he is holding you over the lake of awful dead fish the stink rises off the water\n\nhe turns to the white building and croons to you
the lights go off in the auditorium and the students find their way out in darkness
don't you see they're perfect\nyou hesitate and the fish swarm around you shards of glass break the surface of the water they are all\nthey are all dead\n\nthey won't hurt you he says come on back to me. come back. to me.\n\ntheir teeth are so sharp
You jump onto a slice of lemon. It bobs under your weight.\nThe half fish watch you with dead eyes.\n[[The man on the bank is laughing.]]
The film runs out. It is your duty to switch the film reels. It is very important. A very important duty. The students are waiting in darkness.\n[[You fumble with the film.]]
You press your face against the cold metal bars of a [[cage]].
The motion [[stops]].
He says come back. he says you can be perfect too.\n[[come back.]]\n[[won't you come back.]]\n[[run away.]]
[[Others]], like you and not, fill the cages crowded around yours. Anxious whines and mewls rise up.\n[[The cage is moving.]]
you jump again. lemons and lily pads and moving away from the man on the bank he stretches his arms out entreats you but he cannot step into the lake either the fish the fish the fish\n\nyou will not go to him\nthe lemon bobs and\n\n[[overturns]]
You see shapes in the lake and hesitate at its edge. The humans in white coats have fallen back. They are in no hurry.\n[[You jump.]]
You run.\nHumans are running after you. The sunlight is white and their coats are white.\nYou hear the blood pump in your chest. You are alive.\n[[The wall.]] [[Or the pond.]]
The screen lights up again. Grainy sepia diagrams.\nThe smooth voice unrolls, explaining. The fish. [[The fish.]]
The fish are specially bred. Yes. Teeth like needles.\n[[The fish are dead and rotten.]]
Everything is [[dark]].