Sardines, they say. Sardines. Of course, those insignificant humans cannot bother to learn the specific names of each different species. It’s so much easier to clump us all under one little name. Sardines. 

My chosen title is Kapinoida and I am a proud European pilchard, with a lineage of Sardina pilchardus. I live near the small English island Lundy in a school of hundred other European pilchards. We have a few different species here and there, but we get along well. 

My best friend, a South American pilchard with a lineage of Sardinops sagax, is thinking of forming a fish activism club. I suggested we call it the CLUPeidae because that’s the family name, clupeidae. The family all sardines belong to. It will be our fair share of irony.

We have culture clubs and the general dancing institution in our school, but we don’t have an activism club. And most of us need something to do in our spare times, so we are hoping that the CLUPeidae will provide that much needed distraction. The Japanese pilchards and the sardinella have their Japanese club in which they work on special glistening techniques for our scales. The Californian pilchards, and the Brazilian sardinella work together on producing interesting theater productions. 

There is a rumor that they get their ideas from humans, but it seems like a stretch to me. I mean, for that to happen, they would need to see humans engage in theater, which I highly doubt humans do. Humans and theater? HA! Quite a funny image if you ask me. Those crude creatures in something as emotive as theater? I don’t think so. 

For all I know, humans spend the bulk of their time hunting us down, and then turning us into either sustenance for feeding, or specimens for researching. Research I say, but obviously, they are flattering themselves with such credit. After everything they have researched, they still haven’t figured out our defensive brain mechanism that shuts down major brain functions when in danger. So they continue to insult each other with petty remarks as ‘goldfish’ to point out someone’s short memory, but in reality, we all know that as untrue as their claims are, they are also pathetic for their need to insult each other. Our biologists, the Southern African pilchards and the Bali sardinella, after working with our psychologists, the Indian oil sardines and the Round sardinella have concluded that due to the limited usage of their brains, humans haven’t moved past self-esteem issues and the like, which not only explains their insults, but also the other useless and extremely violent activities they participate in such as wars. 

For our activism club, we are thinking of working with the Goldstripe and the Maderian sardinella, our statisticians, to devise a plan to keep our family from overpopulating. As the global temperatures rise, our females reproduce more and more. If we don’t put a restraint on ourselves, we might take over the ocean, and homogeneity in a habitat has been historically proven to harm its inhabitants. We are cooperating with the Rainbow sardines first as the experimental species because they volunteered, already having reported of non-reproducing male-male and female-female couplings in their schools.

~~~

I had to write a story for my AP Language class and I thought, why not write the ramblings of a sardine? After a few hours of research and a completed first draft, it slowly dawned on me that my muse might have been high when it popped this idea in my head – so, I am sorry if any of this was disturbing to you. If you have any feedback, I would love to hear it! 

PS: I would also love to get prompts to write about, so if you have any crazy ideas and can compete with my muse, tell me and I shall write (:

Lots of porcupines,

~Belle