Eels

The Eel

In the Sargasso sea an adult eel is fertilizing eel eggs. His black and silver body winds through the sea. Suddenly he becomes stiff and stops moving. He slowly floats to the bottom of the ocean.

In a tiny egg  an eel is moving. He wriggles out of his egg and  starts his journey to the river. Half swimming, half riding the waves, he says goodbye to the Sargasso sea for a very long time.

Three years later the baby eel has reached his destination. But the river is too cold so he waits and turns into a see through eel. He is like a thread of glass He is now called an elver.  Through the river he swims, climbing waterfalls and gliding silently. He reaches a shallow, weedy river and explores his new home, trying  to find a house. An old tree stump lies in the middle of the river. It is hollow. It is a perfect house for the eel.

The elver spends his days gliding through the river.  His slimy skin is darkening. It is turning yellow and brown. The elver is not an elver anymore.

For 22 years the yellow and brown  eel lives in the river. He is slimy  and slit eyed. He is thick from eating shrimps and small fish. Sometimes there is no food in the river so he slithers like a snake to the pond where he feeds on snails.

The eel can’t eat! His stomach is shrinking. He is turning black, but his stomach is silver.  His eyes grow and turn blue. They  are the eels own personal headlights. The eel swims around, saying goodbye to the river he had lived in for 22 years. He then waits for a dark night and glides down  the waterfalls he had climbed up as a elver. He swims silently down the river and begins the eighty day journey  to the Sargasso sea. He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t sleep. He just swims to his birthplace.

In the Sargasso sea an adult eel is fertilizing eel eggs. His black and silver body winds through the sea. Suddenly he becomes stiff and stops moving. He slowly floats to the bottom of the ocean...

Georgina