SueAnn Porter

** Now obviously this did not happen to ME, so it’s not officially memoir…but the idea came to me years ago while swimming in the YMCA pool.

Chapter 1

Meet Billy the Brook Trout

            Billy the Brook Trout lived in the big lake with his family. Billy was a greenish-brown fish who had speckled spots of red, blue and brown splattered all over his sides. All of Billy’s friends believed that the whole world was water.  But Billy believed there was something more out there, because one time he saw a big fish eat a worm, and then go upwards. He never saw that fish again.

The other fish laughed at Billy when he said there was something more to the world. “He just swam out to a different stream,” they told him. “There are many streams and rivers, and lakes and ponds. That fish just went to another place.”

Billy’s parents told him to stop being so silly. It hurt Billy’s feelings that his parents did not believe him.

One day, Billy was swimming in his lake, and decided to swim out a little further than usual. He saw an insect hanging in the water. It looked like it was attached to something shiny. Billy was hungry, and he opened his mouth to eat the worm. As soon as he closed his mouth around the worm, he felt something sharp in his mouth. Billy got scared. It hurt! He felt himself being pulled up. He was pulled up out of the water! What was this strange place?

Billy was hanging in the air. “Air?” he thought, “I can’t breathe.” He saw a large figure like nothing he had ever seen before. It was a fisherman holding a long pole. The pole had a long string attached to it. And the string was attached to Billy’s mouth.

“What’s going on?” Billy thought to himself. “I’m not in my water, this is a strange new place. There really is something more than just the lake I have been living in all my life! But it’s too hot here, and too bright, and I don’t like it.”

Billy looked at the big fisherman. The fisherman looked at Billy and then looked and his friend and said, “This one is too small to keep.” Just then, Billy felt the fisherman grab his mouth, pull out the sharp hook and throw him back into the water.

“I’m back in my lake,” Billy thought happily. It felt so good to be back in his cool water, and not in the hot sun anymore.

Billy swam as fast as he could to find his parents. “Mom, I have been outside of the lake. There really is something else out there,” Billy told his mom excitedly.

“Oh, Billy, how many times do I have to tell you, there is nothing besides water. This lake and the streams and rivers that attach to our lake make up the whole world.”

Billy told his mom about the insect and the man and the pole, and being thrown back into the lake. But she didn’t believe him.

Billy told his dad, his friends and his neighbors, but they didn’t believe him either. “Why doesn’t anyone believe me?” Billy thought. “I know what happened. I know what I experienced. I didn’t make it up.” Billy felt sad that no one believed him.

Later that week, Billy’s friend Glen was very hungry and he saw a worm. He bit into it. He felt the pain of a hook in his mouth. He soon found himself being pulled up into the air. “Oh, no,” Glen thought. “This must be what Billy told me about.”

Glen went through the same experience that Billy went through. Glen saw a large fisherman who was holding a pole. Glen was dangling by a line that was attached to the pole. Suddenly, Glen felt the fisherman grab him, and unhook him and throw him back into the water.

Glen was so happy to be back in his lake. He went to go find Billy and tell him what just happened. Glen told friends along the way what had happened to him, and that there was another world outside of the lake. But no one believed him.

Finally, Glen found Billy and told him what happened. “See, there is a world outside of this one,” Billy said.

“How can we convince our family and friends of the existence of another world?” Glen asked. “It’s important for them to know about this other world. That world can affect this world, and they don’t know that. What about the fish that are caught and not thrown back? Where do they go? We never see them again.”

“I guess the best thing to do is keeping trying to tell them,” Billy said.

“Yes, Glen answered. “Let’s keep telling them and never give up.”