Build Your Own Fish

by Noah Heywood

Start with the tail. The end is the hardest part, so it’s best to start there. The caudal fin is essential, giving the fish propulsion and steering. Do not damage the caudal fin during handling. Without the caudal fin, fish are sluggish and weak. It would be easier to start over now than end up with a useless fish. Prepare both the anal fin and posterior dorsal fin. Leave room to attach them later. The fins are what separate fish from serpents. Serpents are liars, making them poor company. With a strong tail, your fish can escape many enemies. The tail is now complete. Set it aside.

Move on to the body. Create a pocket of muscle, line it with ribs. Fill the cavity with the heart, liver, stomach, intestines, swim bladder, and spleen. Prepare the anterior dorsal, pelvic, and pectoral fins. Leave room to attach them later. Don’t forget to not add legs. Legs are for frogs, echidna, zebra, and crows, but never fish. Leglessness is what separates fish from lizards. If you accidentally made a lizard, rehome it at your nearest exotic pet store. The body is complete now. Set it aside.

Time to construct the head. Start with a sloping forehead and a wide mouth. The operculum protects the delicate, pink gills underneath. The gills are what separate fish from tadpoles. In the tadpole’s eye, a fish is never aging, eternally young. We don’t know what the fish thinks of the tadpole. Your fish’s eyes should be flat and silvery; soulless. Do not put a soul in your fish or it may spoil. The head is now complete. Set it aside.

Now, time for assembly. Line up the pieces: head body tail. This is the tricky part; it is much easier to take a fish apart than to put one back together. Unification is what separates a living fish from a dead one. You will know your fish has died if it starts to smell. Orient the pieces and visualize it whole. Glue the spine together. Keep the vertebrae in alignment. Knit together the arteries, nerves and muscle tissue. Test it with a small electric shock to see if it will twitch. Attach preprepared fins, refer to diagram for proper placement. Cover with skin. This will protect the internal organs. Tile the surface with scales. This will protect the skin.

Your fish is now complete.

Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of your very own fish, just like the ones which once inhabited your Earth’s oceans. Now you can finally see what these primitive creatures were really like. Keep it as a pet by placing it in a bowl of water and feeding it twice a day. If you get bored of it, try one of the delicious recipes included in this guide. Enjoy!

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Noah Heywood is a transfer student in his junior year at SUNY ESF, majoring in Environmental Biology.

Featured image: Image of two fish adapted from a photograph by Elle Katie, 2018.

Artist note: Inspired by David Lynch’s Children’s Fish Kit, lab-grown vegan meat, and a frog dissection toy I had as a kid. This is a story and instruction manual about creation, specifically creating life, which I believe runs parallel to the theme of “healing.”