The Tortoise & The Goldfish

The Tortoise leaved slowly through a large and musty old tome while the Goldfish, far too modern to be bothered with ink and paper, instead amused himself with a little glowing gadget called an electronic book.

“You should see this poem, Tortoise. It’s an electronic poem and it’s so much better than your old fuddy-duddy book poetry”, enthused Goldfish looking through the glass of its goldfish bowl at the ancient reptile.

“Oh?”, replied the Tortoise, only half listening, so engrossed was he by his book, “And what's so good about your electric poem?”.

“Well..um..its so cool. I just touch the screen and pictures come up and I can make all the words change colour too and, did I mention, can’t remember if I mentioned, but it plays music as well”, said the Goldfish excitedly, filling its water with a cloud of bubbles as it spoke.

“But what about the poem? Why is the poem so good?”, asked the Turtle, momentarily turning his attention away from his book.

“Well...um…it’s so cool”, answered the Goldfish, giddily, “Because, like, when you touch the screen all the letters start dancing about or you can make them do somersaults…oh and I can link up with other Goldfish in bowls all round the world and exchange comments on my electric poem…oh and did I mention it’s so cool?”.

“But what about the poem? What do the words of the poem say?”, snapped the Tortoise in mild irritation.

“Um…I don’t know…well I can’t actually read…but I don’t need to you see my cool electronic book does that for me too”, said the Goldfish and then, as she stroked a fin across the surface of the electronic books brightly lit screen, the Tortoise heard the voice of an actor speak the words, “The Cat Sat On The Mat”.

The Tortoise, much to the Goldfish’s consternation, didn’t seem very impressed.

“Well. I don’t think very much of that”, he said, shaking his head and tutting, “No. You see it’s the words on the page that count; the language and the meaning and the structure, not these silly distractions. That’s not a book, by gad, it’s a computer game but I don’t need any of your gizmos because the language on the page is all that I need to delight me. The poem itself dances exquisitely and performs perfect somersaults within the mind”.

But the Goldfish only stuck its tiny tongue out and blew a raspberry, “What do you know?.
You old arachnid!”, it said, meaning to say anachronism, “You tortoises can’t even turn yourselves right side up when you fall on your backs”.

And, saying this, the goldfish flipped itself upside down but, unfortunately, the vibration caused by this movement made the Goldfish's own bowl flip over on its side and all the water in the bowl then started running out onto a laminated floor.

“Eeek!”, cried the goldfish, hugging a tiny shallow puddle of water, as its electronic book was washed away out of the bowl.

But the Tortoise didn’t notice. He was far too engrossed in reading his wonderful old book.