Gone Fishing...

# "We've waited so long for someone to take us back home, it just takes so long... And meanwhile the days go drifting away, and some of us sink like a stone, waiting for mothers to call" # - Counting Crows 

This is a story about a land beyond our own, where humans can't survive but can only watch from afar...  It is a fast-paced tale of a race against time between rivals and rascals where survival is fought for day by day...  Colourful characters populate this world and even though their adventures span a tiny stage, they play out on an epic scale...

That first paragraph rather sounds like the makings of a damn good work of fiction now I read it back to myself but I must apologise, dear reader, for misleading you from the outset a little - although the descriptions made there are accurate - this is from an epic TRUE story told on a very small scale, but one which still resonates with me to this day...  It was on a recent trip back to the old homestead, journeying to the village I grew up in, to visit my parents that I was informed as soon as I entered the front door (no "Hello, how are you"!) that the old family fish tank had sprung a leak.

Now, as I sat and chatted with my folks and tried to catch up on the week's events in their lives, my gaze kept being drawn to the "second television" as I used to see the fish tank as a kid...  and strange feelings of melancholy began to well up inside me.  You could put this down to pure sentimentality or not wanting to let go of the past (I'll freely admit I do both of those things!) but this was something different - you see, staring into that 'other world' as a child, and to some extent as a teenager, I realised were where some of my formative storytelling tendencies were born...

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