Once upon a time, there was a fisherman who lived by a great river.
One day, after a hard day's fishing, he hooked what seemed to him to be the
biggest, strongest fish he had ever caught. He fought with it for hours,
until, finally, he managed to bring it to the surface. Looking of the edge
of the boat, he saw the head of this huge fish breaking the surface. Smiling
with pride, he reached over the edge to pull the fish up. Unfortunately, he
accidently caught his watch on the edge, and, before he knew it, there was a
snap, and his watch tumbled into the water next to the fish with a loud
"sploosh!" Distracted by this shiny object, the fish made a sudden lunge,
simultaneously snapping the line, and swallowing the watch. Sadly, the
fisherman stared into the water, and then began the slow trip back home.
Many years later, the fisherman, now an old man, was working in a
boring assembly-line job in a large city. He worked in a fish-processing
plant. It was his job, as each fish passed under his hands, to chop off their
heads, readying them for the next phase in processing. This monotonous task
went on for years, the dull *thud* of the cleaver chopping of each head being
his entire world, day after day, week after weary week. Well, one day, as he
was chopping fish, he happened to notice that the fish coming towards him on
the line looked very familiar. Yes, yes, it looked... could it be the fish
he had lost on that day so many years ago? He trembled with anticipation as
his cleaver came down. IT STRUCK SOMETHING HARD! IT WAS HIS THUMB!
