Lateral thinking and nonsensical chatter sometimes lead to a story written backwards.

Lateral thinking and nonsensical chatter sometimes lead to a story written backwards - Image courtesy of Dave Morris

No one knew where the shark had come from. Nor why it had tried to gatecrash the party through the roof.

Someone suggested the shark may have jumped out of the water and landed a little too far out from the ocean for its own good. 

Then someone else snorted and said sharks didn’t do that kind of thing, only dolphins did the jumping-out-of-the-water trick, and then everyone looked towards the big fish sticking out of the roof and wondered what it was, a shark or a dolphin.

- It has to be a dolphin. Because if that thing did not jump out of the water how then did it land here on the top of the roof.

- Maybe not, maybe it is a shark that was swooped up by a hungry dragon, which for some reason, I don’t know what, somehow let go of the shark from its clasp and so now we have that thing sticking out from the roof.

- Do you reckon the dragon is also now thrashing around on somebody’s rooftop? I mean, something significant ought to have happened for him to have released his prey, such a huge prey that too, in mid-flight.

- If it were breathing fire down anybody’s chimney, we would have heard about it by now. I suppose it is safe to assume that whatever made the dragon drop his prey did not kill or hurt him, perhaps just caught him unawares, shocked him a bit or scared him a great deal, so the dragon dropped the shark/dolphin/whatever-that-is but managed to recover enough, at least momentarily, so as not to fall down himself.

- Something that caught him unawares, shocked him a bit or scared him a great deal, eh? A sudden bolt of lightning? Mid-life crisis perhaps?

- It was a cloudless night, so we can rule out lightning. It could very well have been mid-life crisis. It did catch me unawares, and I did not even know what was happening when it happened to me, and it scared me a great deal. It still gives me the chills, thinking about it does. Yeah, the bugger must have had it real bad.

- I was in my forties when it hit me. How old do you suppose the dragon is? 

- Oh, it has nothing to do with age anymore. Things are different in these times. It could grab you when you are in your twenties, thirties, forties, anytime. There is no telling when.

- Well, considering the size of his prey then, do you reckon he was trying to feed a flight of dragons? A family man?

- Are you suggesting there is more than one dragon?

- Why not? If there is one, there could be more.

- Then there would be dragon eggs too, isn’t it?

- Yes, My memory these days is not what it once used to be. But I recall reading in my childhood that dragons lay their eggs on mountaintops but take them to the mermaids for safekeeping in oyster beds. 

- I remember reading this too. When the eggs are about to hatch, the mermaids bring them up to the surface. The eggs hatch in mid-air and the newborn must fly and breathe fire even before he can open his eyes to the world.

- And what if the baby is unable to?

- Tough luck. Have you ever heard of a wimpy dragon? 

- That’s it! This is a murder mystery and we are close to solving it too.

- Whatever on earth do you mean?

- What if this shark/dolphin thing had gotten greedy and had tried to sink its teeth into the dragon eggs? Papa dragon would have wanted to exact revenge, and voila, he grabs the shark, drags him into the skies and lets go. Like he would have his newborn babies.

A hushed silence engulfed the neighbourhood. Everyone considered once again the marine creature, its tail sticking heavenwards, so out of place on a Sunday morning.

- How can you be so sure that dragons even exist in the first place?

- If a giant of a fish can be found wriggling its way into your home through your chimney, why can’t dragons exist?

- There could be other explanations for that shark-dolphin thing on the roof.

- Yeah? Like what?

- Maybe it was being smuggled in an airlift and ... and ...

- And it fell through the floor of the plane?

- Yes, why not?

- Or there was a tsunami overnight that receded just as quickly as it had erupted but left no trace, nothing broken, nothing out of place, no missing persons, on the contrary a recent addition to the neighbourhood, that too a shark on the rooftop.

- Sounds just as plausible as your dragon theory.

- Yes, but it’s definitely not as much fun.

The answer to the puzzle on Facebook is this: Alex and Michelle are fish whose fish-tank broke leading to the pieces of glass strewn on the wet floor.