Fishy Fish Confabulations

By Deng Zhanyong

Old Mr. Zhang went to the local bazaar to buy fish. He walked up to a stall displaying row upon row of fish that looked and smelled quite less than fresh. He picked one up,put it to his nose and took a good whiff. Sure enough it smelled more than a bit fishy. It had apparently spent a little too much time out of water. Looking rather put out, the stall owner grumbled,“Ahem, what’re you doing that for, Sir? These fish are fresh from the river.”

Mr. Zhang didn’t try to debate with the stall owner, nor did he try to call him out for lying.He simply replied, “I was just conversating with that fish.”

The stall owner dismissed the idea as hare-brained, but still couldn’t help being a little tickled at the idea of confabulating with aquatic animals. Just the same,he wanted to give old Mr. Zhang a good ribbing, so he asked coyly,“Then, what were you two talking about just now?”

Mr. Zhang didn’t skip a beat.“Nothing much,” he replied. “I just asked it if the river water was cold.”

“So, what did it tell you about that river water?” The stall owner’s wry grin of glee and contained cackles gave way to squealing snorts of shrill sniggers,attracting a crowd that had gathered to see what in the world all the fuss was about.

“The fish was very apologetic and said it couldn’t remember,considering the fact that it has been out of the water for like two weeks,” Mr. Zhang quipped in a dry deadpan.

The crowd exploded in laughter. Outmatched, the stall owner slumped down on his ramshackle wooden stool,fanning himself, tomatofaced with rage.

老張到菜市場買魚。他走到一家鮮魚攤前，看到擺的魚種類不少，但都不很新鮮。老張?zhí)崞鹨粭l放在鼻子前聞了一下，果然味道不對。看來魚出水的時間不短了。攤主看到他這么一聞，非常不高興，問道：“哎，你這是干什么？我的魚是剛剛打上來的。”

老張并沒有和攤主爭辯，也沒有指責他說謊，而是順口說了句：“我剛剛是和這條魚說話呢。”

攤主覺得老張這話挺有意思，不禁來了興致，想刁難老張一番，于是問：“那你和魚說些什么話呢？”

老張說：“也沒什么，我想到河里游泳，向那條魚打聽一下現(xiàn)在的水究竟涼不涼。”

“那魚怎么說呢？”攤主笑得上氣不接下氣，吸引了一些圍觀的人。

“魚對我說，很抱歉，我沒法告訴你，因為我離開河已經(jīng)十多天了。”老張淡淡地說。

圍觀的人哄然大笑，攤主卻一臉憤然。