(Author's note: Alas, I cannot take credit for the following article. It actually did appear in the London Observer ' among other places. I simply cut and pasted the beginning of the article from this link:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,915125,00.html )...


WORD IS MADE FLESH AS GOD REVEALS HIMSELF... AS A FISH

Edward Helmore
Sunday March 16, 2003
The Observer

(NEW YORK) An obscure Jewish sect in New York has been gripped in awe by what it
believes to be a mystical visitation by a 20lb carp that was heard shouting in Hebrew, in what many Jews worldwide are hailing as a modern miracle.

Many of the 7,000-member Skver sect of Hasidim in New Square, 30 miles
north of Manhattan, believe God has revealed himself in fish form.

According to two fish-cutters at the New Square Fish Market, the carp
was about to be slaughtered and made into gefilte fish for Sabbath
dinner when it suddenly began shouting apocalyptic warnings in Hebrew....

***

FISH STORY

Do you call this a mix-up, he wondered? A mix up, that's when you get the wrong trousers from the dry cleaners. This went way beyond that. A fish! How could he do God's bidding as a fish? A fish couldn't be expected to do this task that had been laid before him. He knew fish. That's what he had done for 40 years, gutted them alive, day in day out as they came off the trawlers at the New Square Fish Market. It wasn't in them.

He looked around at his fellow fish. His school. They were carp. He knew. He had gutted enough carp in his time. Who was going to listen to a carp? Nobody. He pondered his dilemna. The Almighty had made it quite clear: It was his job to alert humanity and tell them that the end was near. Mankind still had time to atone for their sins, but they must act quickly. It all depended on him, lowly Shlomo. In life he may have been chopped liver, but in death he was going to shine. At least that's what he'd thought, until this fish thing had come up.

Two days later he was still swimming around the Atlantic wondering just how to accomplish this miracle when a net fell on him and the rest of his school. A moment later he was dumped unceremoniously into the hold of a fishing trawler. Great! Wasn't God going to be tickled when he showed back up to report his failure?


Truth be told, God hadn't been quite what Shlomo had expected. The fire and brimstone, that had all been in place, but there was something peeking in around the edges, something Shlomo hadn't been able to put his finger on. He wanted to say 'mocking'� but that couldn't be right, could it? Hadn't he, Shlomo, been created in God's own image? How could God mock his own reflection? Whatever the case, the God who had sent him on this mission didn't seem the type to accept a simple excuse like, 'You turned me into a carp.'� No, Shlomo would definitely be a Shlemiel in God's book.


It was as this thought was torturing him for about the thousandth time that he noticed that he wasn't on the trawler anymore. At some point he must have been moved to a barrel, and now he was being tipped out of that. A second later he recognized his new surroundings. It was a miracle! He was back at the New Square Fish Market. There was Jacob standing over the table...over him. All was not lost. Jacob would listen to him.

'Hey, Jacob!'� he yelled in his best Hebrew (God would appreciate that touch), 'it's me, Shlomo!'� Jacob froze with the most foolish grin attached to his face. 'Really, it's me,'� Shlomo repeated, 'I've got an important message for mankind. You've got to pass it along. God says that the end is near. Everyone must atone for their sins. There isn't much time. Spread the word. Tell everybody!'�

Jacob stared down, stricken.

A moment later he knew what he had to do. To be fair, it was probably exactly the same thing that you or I would do if we found the devil staring up at us posing as a fish. Luckily, Jacob was so nervous that the knife missed Shlomo and instead connected with his own thumb. He ran from the room howling. Just as Shlomo was processing this strange turn of events he saw another knife gleaming above him. It was attached to that Portuguese guy. What was his name, he could never rememb....


....God jiggled with mirth. He couldn't remember the last time that he had laughed so hard. When he was able to catch his breath he called for another goblet of ambrosia. As he sipped the nectar, he questioned his Archangels. They wholeheartedly agreed; it had been his best joke yet. Of course the Archangels were such sycophants, you never knew when they were just sucking up, but what did it matter? He was God, and he saw that it was good. Giving that Hassid the apocalyptic message and then turning him into a fish had been sheer genius. That look on the other Hassid's face when the fish had looked up at him and spoken, that had been priceless.

The fish, yeah, well that had been harder to read. Oh well. He really should have made fish more expressive.

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