von Jacques Pinard Brown (Copyright)

Joe was sixty-five years old and retired.

He lived in an old battered caravan by the sea on west coast of South Africa, it is a desert region an not many people live here, which is, as he likes it. He found a nice secluded place near the beach, miles from any people, and started fishing. He’s been fishing for two years.

One afternoon he got a bite on his line and gave the rod a jerk. When the fish was hooked he started reeling it in, it put up one hell of fight, but eventually he managed to get to shore. As he pulled the hook from his mouth, he saw that there was something strange about this fish. He inspected it closely, and yes it was true, he was sure. There could be no mistaking. He had caught the Holy Mackerel.

He knew it was the Holy Mackerel because, well, it was a mackerel, and it had a tiny halo over its head. Thus; the Holy Mackerel.

He was overjoyed. He had heard much talk of the Holy Mackerel, but would never have imagined that he would be the one to catch it. He tried conversing with fish by saying things like; “Boy, for a Holy Mackerel you sure put up one hell of a fight.” But the Mackerel remained mute, and never responded to one of his remarks.

He telephoned a newspaper group in Cape Town, and within hours his little caravan in the middle of nowhere, was surrounded by people and cameras. They came in cars, busses and helicopters, and still they came. Joe had put the Holy Mackerel in a plastic bucket filled with seawater.

The Mackerel swam around and around inside the little plastic bucket, with his little halo floating above his head, as the crowds surrounded him in eager anticipation of whatever was going to happen next. Surely the fish would talk and disclose some universal wisdom; after all, it was the Holy Mackerel.

But the fish remained silent for seven days, but after swimming around for seven days in a small circle in a plastic bucket, he gave it up and he spake. He started slowly

“Gaagh” said the fish, and after he had cleared his throat in this manner he continued. The cameras flashed and everyone hushed his neighbor to silence as they awaited the wise words of the Fish. And the Mackerel spoke.

“I just have this to say.” Said the Mackerel “There aint all that many fishes in the sea no more.” And then he said no more.

The people tried to coerce him with snacks and food, and one or two even threatened to fry him in a pan. But the Holy Mackerel was not phased, and kept his piece ever after.

When it became obvious to Joe that the fish was saying no more, there was the danger that he would lose his commercial value, so he sold it for a generous sum to the Cape Town aquarium. They put the Mackerel in a tank all on its own, and people from all over the world came to look at the Mackerel. And paid for it too. But the Mackerel never said another word. He just swam around in that tank with his little halo above his head, and enjoyed the admiring glances of the humans beyond the glass. What’s more, he was fed generously, because he was the star attraction.

But for the next fifty years people came to admire the Fish, and ponder over his prophetic words ‘There aint all that many fishes in the sea no more.’

Whatever could he have meant by that they wondered?

II.

Fifty years later a team of brilliant marine biologist, combined with a team of equally brilliant social scientists, came up with a treatise as to what the Mackerel meant by his prophetic statement.

They said that the global starvation the world was experiencing was directly due to the oceans eradicated fish stocks, and that this was what was meant by the Mackerel when he said ‘There aint all that many fishes in the sea no more.’

There theory was generally accepted by the starving population of the earth