what im telling you is my recollection but as is in my power to know it is true being based on the memories of myself and swell as he told it to me before he grew into the sky. theres parts i promised i wouldanot say and willnot but the else is truth as sure as theres fishes in the deep.
when i beknown him swell was ten nonebright maybe but plenty curious and always looking where others neverwould.
thats how he found the deep.
swimming down when the other boys rounded on him too much was swells way of prayer like otherfolk go to church.
he told me it was quiet and peaceful down there.
the way you got there was to dive and keep going once you got to the bottom you kept going anyway and in the deep there was fishes all swimming round and as swell knew them he recognized in them people he knew. the fishes and peoples were the same you could say even that they were in different places.
the night prissy kims dau disappeared swell was in the deep and he knew her fish disappeared so he knew she died.
one day after the police talked their skill to swell and because he was nonebright he told the police what hed seen and that got the police on their suspicions so they asked him a lot of questions then they went to the lake and dove to where swell said the deep was but all they got to was the bottom and went no more.
no matter what swell said they did not believe that the deep was downpast where the divermin dont see.
the police tried to put their rings on swell but he got away into the lake into the deep where it was quiet and peaceful where he knew the fishes of the police and in anger took they fishes in his hands.
when he come back up he threw they fishes down all squirming and opening closing their mouths so did the police fall down and die and disappear.
then he cooked the fishes and ate them and slept because he was tired.
when people came with worry in the morning they found him by the lake but he had grown a pound for every pound of they whose they fish he ate.
they were scared of swell after.
whenever anyone would make a fuss he would dive into the deep and eat their fishes and grow biggerstill until one day he was too big for the lake and could not fit into the deep.
thats when he stood and grew into the sky.
couldanot anyone talk to him after that because his head was too high and even when they chopped him with axes to flesh chunks did his head stay up.
its there forever now like a second moon doing playthings with tides warning and revealing quiet and peaceful deeps for us all.