Playing God

The first fish I make is rubbish.
It has no gills, it has no fins,
it looks like a wet sock full of sand
and, what’s more, it can’t swim.
When I throw it in, it just sinks.
Yeah, the first fish I make stinks.

The second fish I make is a little better.
I manage to get a funky kind of tail
and something that narrowly fails to be a fin.
When I throw it in, it stops, takes a breath, thinks,
then flaps its not-quite-fin and sinks.

The third fish has eyes as big as clams.
The fourth likes to float on its side.
The fifth fish has fins that look like hands.
The sixth mysteriously dies.
The seventh, eighth and ninth fishes
all look at me accusingly as they float upside-down.
The tenth makes a sound like a fart,
then falls apart in an awful pinkish cloud.

With the eleventh fish, I have a breakthrough.
I take two fins and move them down towards the tail.
Suddenly, my fish can’t fail.
He flails his fins, spins and he’s away.
He is fast. The last ten only bobbed around
and picked up speed when when they floated down
to the bottom. Number eleven has got them all beat.
Number eleven is sweet.

Number twelve is good, but doesn’t last long.
He’s eaten by number eleven. I move on.
Number thirteen – big fins, small eyes –
swims into the side of the tank and dies.
Number fourteen eats number thirteen,
number fifteen eats number fourteen,
number sixteen eats number fifteen.
This goes on for a while.

The ten thousand, three hundred and eighty-fourth fish I make
can speak perfect Dutch.
The ten thousand, three hundred and eighty-fifth
has a wristwatch made of plastic.
The ten thousand, three hundred and eighty-sixth
walks across the bottom using driftwood as a crutch.
The ten thousand, three hundred and eighty-seventh
is annoyingly sarcastic.

The six billion, four hundred million,
two hundred and nine thousand,
nine hundred and twentieth fish I make
asks me what I’m doing.
‘I’m making fish,’ I say.
‘I’m not a fish,’ it says.
‘Yes you are,’ I say. ‘You’re the six billion, four hundred million,
two hundred and nine thousand, nine hundred and twentieth
fish I’ve made.’
He looks dismayed.

By the time I hit ten billion,
I notice something strange.
The way I make the fish has changed.
I now arrange their features in an oddly familiar way.
They all have little beards. They look up at me and say,
‘You look just like us.’
I am not sure I trust these fish.

The four hundred billionth fish I make
looks exactly the same as me.
When I look closely, I see that he has something in his hands.
I lean in. I look. Then I understand.

The first fish he makes is rubbish.