Essay Journal

Northern Snakehead [N]

Without any hesitation, Ned jumped into the semi-cold water. He had a short wave of confusion as to where he had been before this, but he brushed it off like one of the clumps of river garbage floating past him. Focusing on his task, he wove in between the weedy bits in the water, disturbing other fish and small water-dwelling insects, making for his destination. Reaching the clearing, he briefly speculated upon what his scuba diving friend Roger would have thought, had he been here. That simple fact opened a whole new train of thought, but he refused to dwell on it. Idly, he spun around, scanning the grime, rocks, and plants in the surrounding water, finally catching sight of a slightly out of character gray green sausage shaped object. Aha, he thought, cautiously edging closer to the lump, which, as he expected, had eyes and an extremely long mouth. A sudden wave of bubbly water drove him backwards, and he struggled to regain his composure. He didn't have far to look to see the slowly advancing northern snakehead fish. For some reason, everything still made sense, except for that slight nagging feeling hinting that everything certainly was not making sense. But the absolutely going to plan side overtook, along with a feeling of fear as the fish seemingly crept even closer, now beginning to open its spacious mouth lined with sharp teeth. Ned concluded that running away would be even more dangerous than staying, so he inched back, out of ideas. Triggered by his movement, Mr. Sharp And Slithery shot straight at Ned, about to take a large bite out of him (not to mention the annoyingly cheerful music starting to play in the background and....He jerked awake and, blinking, grabbed the phone beside his bed, began to unnecessarily smack the screen to get it to shut up. Suddenly, he remembered. Firstly, he would have had to make a reasonable drive to get to the dive site. Secondly, Roger was supposed to be a partner to go with him. And last and most importantly, Northern Snakeheads do have sharp teeth, but most certainly NOT that big, and they only ate other fish, NOT humans. Sighing in irritation, Ned dragged himself out of bed, unenthusiastic about making his scheduled trip, even if it was the real thing and much less scary.

A/N: This is from an ecology assignment I had to do about an invasive species, and part of it was to write a story involving the certain animal.  It is completely unrelated to the last essay.