Finally, Fashionable and Decorative Lamps For All Fish

It used to be that only deep-sea creatures who live in complete crushing darkness could afford fancy bioluminescent lamps, but now even the common carp, trout or guppy can access the power of light to make their lives more efficient and decorative. Medium: ink on paper, photoshop, arugula.

Comments

[tacoma florist]

that's so cute.

[Demon Kitty]

I love this!! I love it! I really enjoy your surreal fauna and flora stuff!!

[WebMaster Pete]

You're weird. And I like it.

[Knox Bronson]

i fell asleep on the couch. woke up. came and sat at my computer. wondered what 14 had been up to. half-asleep. can barely keep my eyes open, so sleepy. but this is obvious: fish lantern good; fish taco bad.

[Dr. L.]

The light bulb glare in the little fish's eyes call to mind the abnormal things we are doing to the environment. Great work, 14.

[twopotatothreepotato]

Something about Prague’s grayness made even the slightest colors amongst the shop windows and irregularly-hued cobblestones leap about in Antonin’s eyes, but the school of fish trailing him was something else entirely. His rubber boots clopped squishily along the village square, and he wondered how long the fish could keep up with him.

The air was pregnant with moisture, and the gills of these ex-lake-dwellers sucked the precipitation ably, but their fins made for ungainly transportation along the mortar and brick carpeting the square. Still, they’d been following Antonin since he left home. Here he was, nearly to his office, and his unwanted scaled friends had yet to give up.

A trail of people marched behind, their eyes glued on the two-dozen wriggling forms trailing the hapless office prole, and the methodical footfalls of Antonin’s townspeople merged with the splash and moist smacking of his newfound water-breathing companions. All his life he’d taken great pains to blend into his surroundings as seamlessly as possible: Now, Antonin Tchynkov’s carefully-forged anonymity diminished with each squishy step.

He rounded a narrow alley. Just a few feet away was the Print Shop, and Antonin was confident that those damned fish would never get up the stairs. He turned around to see his slimy pursuers.

Two small girls had wended their way through the dumbstruck crowd trailing the fish-out-of-water. One of them, a five-year old with black hair as coarse as burnt branches, leapt forward with a malevolent giggle. Her white shoes loomed over three of the fish in enveloping slow motion.

The small wriggling forms would be categorically smashed into the pavement and Antonin didn’t care. Strange, then, that he reflexively flung his arms out behind him, catching the girl before her heels connected with the cobblestones or the fish atop it. The scaled creatures began to mass around Antonin’s feet as he held the girl aloft about a metre in the air. She looked at him with a look of faint disappointment as he gently set her down just outside the ring of living fish surrounding his booted feet.

“Go home,” Antonin intoned. The girl, her friend, and the other townspeople who’d trailed them to this point all stopped. One by one, each gawking biped turned and headed backwards, back into the town square and out of sight.

Forty-eight curiously expressive and dewy fish orbs stared up at Antonin as he stood, stymied, on the stairs leading to the office entrance. The little creatures looked like dogs awaiting a command from their master, and that sentience unnerved him. The braying voice of his employer Mr. Czerny cut through the awkward silence, and it was almost a relief to hear that familiar cluck.

“Antonin! Here’s the map.” Czerny tossed the rolled document from his office window down to his still-dumbfounded employee. Antonin caught the map in his left hand. “Looks like you’ve met the clients. Give them their property.”

The fish began to stir more intently, and Antonin looked down at them. “The map is…theirs?” he asked.

“Yes, for God’s sake!” Czerny sputtered, obviously losing patience. “Give it to them!”

The befuddled young man on the stairs shrugged. “…Very well. Here,” he said as he set the map atop the teeming mass of scales and moisture. The fish turned as a group, balancing the map on their backs, and wriggled back out towards the square.