Fish & Grapefruit: The Fever, The Fiction, and the Furry Reveal
Fish had been acting weird.
Weirder than usual, which was saying something, considering he once tried to arrest his own reflection for “smuggling vibes.”
He paced the office wearing two monocles, a tutu, and a crown made from a colander and three limp celery sticks. “Your majesty,” he said to a stapler, “the cheese revolt has begun. The mold demands voting rights.”
Grapefruit, sitting across the room reading Punch Crime in the Face Monthly, didn’t look up. “Fish. Buddy. You okay?”
Fish blinked, sweating. “You’re talking. But your mouth’s not moving.”
“That’s because you’re staring at a mop in a hat.”
“Oh no,” Fish whispered. “It’s happening again.”
FLASHBACK TO: THE DREAM WORLD
Fish had lived a glorious, chaotic life with his best friend Grapefruit: a sarcastic brunette citrus fruit with great eyebrows and zero tolerance.
They solved cheese crimes. Passport frauds. They worked with a chickadee named Storm he had a huge crush on. A fashion koala. A posh crow. A dancing duck. It was wild, but it all felt so real.
Except now… he wasn’t so sure.
BACK TO REALITY (?)
Grapefruit (or the mop?) snapped her non-existent citrus fingers. “You’ve been sick, Fish. Fever of 105. You tried to marry a watermelon.”
“That explains so much,” Fish muttered. “But wait. If that wasn't real… then what is real?”
Suddenly, the mop morphed.
It shimmered. Warped. Shrank.
And standing there now, arms crossed and furry eyebrows raised… was a red panda.
Fish screamed so hard his tattoo wriggled. “YOU'RE A RED PANDA?!”
“Yup,” said the red panda. “Grapefruit is my nickname. You’ve been hallucinating me as an actual piece of fruit with hair. Frankly, I’m insulted.”
Fish fell to the ground. “This changes everything! You were never citrus?! But… but you were so zesty!”
ENTER: THE CAST
The door flew open.
• Maddie the raccoon stormed in. “FISH LICKED A WALL AND SAID IT WAS A PORTAL.”
• Red the penguin waddled in after her. “Classic neurological confusion. Possibly brought on by expired bean dip.”
• Lexi the farmer horse neighed gently. “Poor little guy. He tried to herd my chickens with interpretive dance.”
• Hope the crow strutted in. “He proposed to my mirror. With a crouton.”
• Bailey the skunk wheeled in a drum set. “He kept singing ‘Fishy in the Sky with Croutons.’ It was catchy, honestly.”
• Sadie the duck tap-danced in. “He called me a disco onion. I’m not even mad.”
The Great Reveal
Fish clutched his head. “None of it was real? Storm? The cheese? The sentient passports?!”
Grapefruit the Red Panda gently patted him. “Some of it was real. The cheese did go rogue. But you made me into a floating fruit detective with nice legs.”
“You… do have nice legs,” Fish muttered.
“And you,” she said, “are banned from eating expired party dip ever again.”
Fish looked up at her, eyes wide. “So what now?”
Grapefruit smiled. “Now we start again. For real this time.”
Fish stood shakily, then grinned. “You know what? I’m okay with that. Even if you’re not a fruit, you’re still the sassiest thing in a ten-mile radius.”
Grapefruit rolled her eyes. “Let’s go, fever brain. There’s a case about a squirrel selling fake NFTs to pigeons.”
THE END
(But definitely not the end of Fish’s weirdness.)
guys, just so you know.. and occasionally may have wanted to strangle 
you (aah family, all under the carpet).
