Three Wishes: The Talking Fish

South Yarmouth, Massachusetts. 

Remember the folktale about the talking fish? The fish that promised a fisherman his first three wishes if the fisherman would only let the fish go free? Marash Girl  remembers reading that folktale;   and  although she fished with her father during much of her early life, both in the deep sea as well as in ponds and lakes,  never in that life had she seen a fish that walked or heard a fish that talked nor did she think that  she would.  But yesterday, in South Yarmouth, she did.  She met a walking, talking fish.

Approaching the fisherman who was fishing from the wooden pier in South Yarmouth, Marash Girl saw his rod bent over as he pulled in his line.  And yes, there was something on the end of that line, a fish that the fisherman immediately dropped onto the wooden slats of the pier.  As he leaned over to remove the hook from the fish's mouth, the fisherman announced his intention to throw the fish back into the ocean, at which point the fish started talking to him, yes, talking, not in words but in audible sounds that were not wheezes or squeaks, but consonantal attempts at communicating.  As soon as the fisherman removed the hook from the fish's mouth, the fish (which Marash Girl soon learned was a Sea Robin) started walking away on its four legs, towards the edge of the pier.  A walking, talking fish, saying 'Thank you' to this fisherman who hailed from Barre, Massachusetts.  "Prehistoric," the fisherman muttered.  "It's prehistoric." 

 Marash Girl bid farewell to the fisherman, wondering what three wishes the fisherman would be granted by this prehistoric creature of the sea.