You arrive at the pool just before the angle of the sun fails. Seven fish are waiting. Each of them, in their own register, has a theory about how much things ought to cost.
scroll downward — the only navigation is gravity
"There must always be too few of the lovely things; otherwise no one would notice that they were lovely."
"A thing is worth being seen, and the seeing is the worth. Charge accordingly."
"Wait long enough and the price will be told to you, in a voice you mistook for water."
"The thing that costs the most is the thing that has filled all of itself. Be round. Be entirely round."
"What is a price but a small electric pulse moving through forty-seven of us at once? It catches. It catches."
"The price changes when you aren't looking. That is the joke. That is the whole joke."
"You cannot quarrel with a fish whose feelers are as long as her body. The price was always negotiable."
Filed by Reporter Beti, depth 847 cm, ambient pH 7.2, mood: optimistic. The fish were kind. The light held.
with thanks to the lens-flares — Cordelia (60 cm) Maribel (240 cm) Ondine (390 cm) Galadriel-Lite (520 cm) Pomelia (680 cm) Sylvie (820 cm)
— Beti, ichthyologist (provisional)