A Carp in the Sky

He paced a dozen steps.  He then  paced the same amount of  steps to the side. It was the  whole dimension of  his home. A bark sounded from behind him.
His steps went up the ladder leaning on the side of the man's more than modest hut. The constant motion of the waves – even if gentle today – made the wooden structure of the hut slightly creak under his weight.  He  adjusted the antenna  attached  to his housing.  A disapproving bark sounded from within the hut. His hands carefully adjusted the antenna once  more. Another bark sounded from beneath him, this time approving.  He stepped down from the ladder. His feet were back on the wooden deck of the raft. A satisfied expression marked his face. 
He stretched his back, gaze on the horizon separating ocean  from sky. Behind him the hut’s door, or rather the wooden plank that served as a door pushes open. It slipped out of its angles and fell outward. It did not break. This was how it opened.
Max stepped out after it.
“Anything new on TV, Max? The man asked.
The absence of artificial lights left the night sky unchanged. The man’s gaze lifted into the firmament, stars visible, carp included.
A bark responded to his question. Max sat down next to the man, his eyes upward as well, the carp idle above.

It had only been several hours. Social media worldwide was already flooded with photos and videos of the object that had appeared in the sky without warning. By then, even news anchors struggled to conceal their unease. Authorities asked for patience and  cooperation while they work on bringing clarity to the situation.
The statement repeated across channels. The choice scarcely mattered.
There was no broadcast left untouched by the undeniable presence of a foreign object that had taken its place in Earth’s atmosphere, unannounced, before the eyes of the world.

The absurdity of the object did little to ease the confusion surrounding it. History had long attempted to anticipate what might breach humanity’s isolation – green humanoids with dark eyes, celestial saviors descending from above. None of those projections accounted for a fish.

It did not adhere to any logic readily comprehensible. There was only one, and yet it was visible from anywhere on Earth, at all times. Descriptions of its size varied, but always hovered around the same conclusion: large enough to loom over cities, even entire countries, if one’s point of view demanded it. Early attempts at descriptions varied wildly. Comparisons were drawn, revised, discarded. Measurements contradicted one another. Diagrams failed to align.
Despite this, the object remained consistently visible – unchanged, uninterrupted. It did not drift. It did not rotate. It did not respond to observation.

By the end of the day, no conclusions had been reached. Only a name remained.

The man pressed the button on the remote. The television switched to the next channel. The channel changed. The tone did not.
He tried once more, then set the remote aside. A soft sigh escaped him.
“People seem really bothered by that fish. What about you, Max?” The man tilted his head toward the dog. Max barked once, less in response to the question than to the chewing toy that continued to resist him.
His eyes returned to the television. A commercial break. Something unchanged.

“What do you think? A nice vacation in one of the more established hotels. Perfect view of the carp,” he said, without averting his gaze from the screen.
Max barked toward the small window of the hut. The man followed his gaze. In the corner of the window, the carp’s tail was visible against the firmament, unchanged.
“Yeah,” he said. “You’re right.”

The unified front had gathered in grand bravado. A final stand of humanity against an alien threat that had torn its way into the sky itself. Portals burned above the capitals. Cities lay overrun. What remained of the world’s forces stood diminished, outmatched, waiting.
The alien mothership advanced slowly through the breach, its mass eclipsing the clouds. Humanity did not possess the means to repel it.
Then, silence.
A low rumble rolled through the atmosphere. The carp moved.
Slowly, deliberately, it turned toward the invading vessel. The world held its breath. Eyes fixed on the fish that had remained idle for so long. A light gathered within its mouth. A beam followed.

The mothership split where it was struck, collapsing inward as the sky filled with fire. The planet shook beneath the force of it.

“Okay,” he said. “I was with it until now.”
He turned the volume down. The overly cinematic explosion was doing unpleasant things to the television’s aging speakers.
“Another carp saves humanity finale? Really?”
Max barked at the screen, tail wagging. The colors of the explosion seemed to amuse him.

He patted his companion’s head.

“Well. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

No invitation had gone unanswered. Not because agreement had been reached, but because absence itself had become untenable.

Representatives arrived from every governing body that could still plausibly claim relevance. Some appeared in person, others through intermediaries, encrypted transmissions, or hastily assembled delegations. Titles mattered less than presence. To be accounted for was, briefly, enough.

The summit had no clear agenda. It did not need one. The mere existence of the anomaly had suspended ordinary priorities. Conflicts were not resolved, merely deferred. Deadlines were postponed. Decisions that had once demanded urgency were quietly allowed to wait.

The object – if it could still be called that – had introduced a pause no treaty could enforce. A shared hesitation.

Humanity, confronted with something too large to confront directly, had done what it always did when understanding failed: it gathered, documented, and delayed.

Multiple incompatible decisions were recorded simultaneously. Publicly, restraint prevailed. Privately, assets were repositioned. Warnings were drafted and redrafted. Responsibility dissolved into committees and contingency frameworks.

Visual confirmation of its experience had settled. Physical proof followed soon after. Selected personnel were dispatched, equipped with the newest available technology – the kind normally reserved for problems that refused to stay unsolved. It was analyzed, measured, documented. Repeatedly
The Results did not vary. Experts arrived. Then more experts. Different fields. Different methods. They all reached the same conclusion. A carp.

Wavelengths and frequencies were soon flooded with attempts at communication. Questions were directed toward the idle fish. None were returned. Before long, the channels became saturated with their own output – signals overlapping, echoing, collapsing into noise. There was no space left for a reply. The carp did not answer. It never did.

It was not long before claims emerged. Not requests, but declarations of ownership and rights, approved by some, contested by others. None were acknowledged by the subject itself.
They did what they could to make their claims viable on the levels they deemed relevant.

Discussions in its name were held above and below the table. Decisions made by few shaped the lives of many. Words and promises hardened into action.
Lead and blood followed, scattered across the grounds where people lived – the result of personal agendas rather than of the idle carp in the sky.
Fingers, artillery, and accusations alike were directed at the fish.

The carp remained where it had always been.

Smoke thinned. Channels went quiet. Jurisdictions shifted, then dissolved into new ones. The structures built around it were left to their own devices, rising and falling by their own weight.
Time passed.

The carp remained idle.

A scowl came from beside him. He looked down at Max, where steady droplets fell onto his companion’s head.
"Free water." he remarks, his view now on the leak in the hut’s roof.
A low, displeased sound answered him. Water gathered on Max’s head. He stood abruptly, shook himself out beside the man, and settled again where the dripping no longer reached him.
The man sealed the leak.

Life on a raft was not easy. Maintenance was a constant concern. Some of it required creative improvisation and adaptation.
He put the flower pot down for the third time, settling it beside the ladder leaning against the hut. He paused. No bark followed. The man exhaled softly. Finally.
“Well,” he said, “someone’s being picky today.”
Max watched the placement carefully.

He adjusted the wooden plank, bracing it with his knee as he pressed it into place over the hole in the raft’s floor. “Measure twice,” he muttered. He reached toward Max and took the hammer from his mouth. The dog held on for a moment before letting go. “Hammer once.”
The nail went in crooked. He tapped it again.

“Or as many times as you need to,” he added.
He drove a dozen nails into the plank until it sat flat. By then, Max had moved to the other side of the raft, clearly displeased by the noise.
When the hammering stopped, Max barked once.

He had never learned how to maintain a raft properly. He learned how to manage.
Someone had once told him something about preparation. He could not remember what it was.

The plank held well enough.

The wind rustled the robes that formed the base garments of the gathering’s ceremonial dress. Their conical headdresses echoed the head of the carp. Long, layered sleeves resembled scales and gills, overlapping fabric catching the light with a dull, aquatic reflection. The figures stood arranged in precise rows, their formation extending across hundreds of people.
The site, dedicated entirely to their beliefs, imposed a ritual stillness rather than celebration. This was not a place of movement or chant. It was a place of endurance.
As prescribed by their doctrine, they remained standing.
Hours passed. Then days.
People worshipped.

“If it wanted to move, it would.” It did not need to mean anything. It only needed to persist. He was not affiliated with any group, but the reach of his online following ensured his statements circulated regardless. He maintained a strict publishing schedule. One video per day. The carp in the sky provided sufficient material to meet it. It became a brand by proximity alone. Meaning collected around it – projected, repackaged, monetized. Episodes came first. Panels followed. Opinions accumulated faster than context.
People followed.

They saw it and did not believe.
Not in its absence, but in its meaning.
The object was dismissed as illusion, projection, trickery. A distortion of perception rather than a presence to be accounted for. To acknowledge it was framed as surrender.
Some invoked principle. Others invoked reason. The language differed. The outcome did not.
Lives were not to be guided by a false idol.
People denied.

Viewing platforms were established. Optimal angles defined. Schedules adjusted.
Goods circulated bearing its likeness. Temporary measures became permanent infrastructure. Routes shifted. Prices recalculated.
Time passed.
The sun lit the days. The moon cared for the nights. The carp remained.
Children learned it without question. It appeared in drawings beside clouds and birds, rendered in crayon and chalk. A sun in the corner. A fish above the roofs.
It had always been there.
People adjusted.

The man pushed the hut’s door open. It fell outward.
He stepped outside. The wind had changed direction. His gaze followed the waves. Max did not notice. He was inside the hut, occupied with something that squeaked.
The man crouched and dipped a finger into the water beside the raft. He watched the ripples for a moment. It was wet.
He nodded.

His gaze lifted toward the sky.
It was not the fish that had shifted.
The raft was drifting.

“Max,” the man called from the top of the hut, “new horizons.”
Max had come out by then. He looked up at the man, uncertain.
He did not question it.
Sometimes the man spoke to the horizon. When he did, Max joined him.

She pushed the garage door open. The hinges resisted, then gave way. Air moved through the space. The wind had changed direction again. She brushed a strand of hair from her face and turned back to the floor.
She reached for the hammer. It was still on the table. A paw nudged it. Slowly.
The hammer slipped, struck the ground, and came to rest just out of reach. She paused.
Expecting help had been optimistic.
She got up, patted the cat on the head as she walked past it, and retrieved the hammer. Her gaze returned to the wooden structure on the floor.
There had been enough instructions around lately. After all, she only needed a few wooden planks.