
Brave Little Liar
Fin It to Win It Deep in the tepid shallows of the neighborhood koi pond—not even a proper lake, mind you—swam a goldfish with delusions far grander than his gallon-sized existence allowed. His name? Morty. Short for Mortimer T. Bubbleton III, if you asked him, though nobody ever did. Morty wasn’t your average ornamental peasant, content to dart between pebbles and wait for toddler fingers to drop pellets from above. No, Morty had ambition. And, more dangerously, he had imagination. “I wasn’t born to swish around with these soggy yes-fish,” he muttered one morning, as he flared his gills at his own reflection in a pond-filter bubble. “I was born to terrorize the tides. I was born to make the ducks flee.” And so, with a DIY spirit usually reserved for frustrated dads in garages and underpaid Etsy sellers, Morty strapped on a shark fin. Not a digital dream, not a Photoshop gag—an actual foam-core dorsal, painted battleship gray, affixed to his slimy gold frame with a bit of lost Velcro and a single shoelace. How it stayed on is a mystery best left to aquatic gods or science fiction. At first, the pond erupted in chaos. The minnows squealed (yes, audibly), the frogs fled to the reeds, and even a particularly judgy heron reconsidered his lunch plans. Morty felt it. That glorious, terrifying power. He wasn’t Morty anymore. He was Megalofish. The Finomenon. King of the chlorinated swamp! “Bow before me, you algae-humping cowards!” he bellowed, though it came out more like *blub-blub-snort-gargle*. Still, the message landed. But as the days passed, Morty realized that power came with, shall we say, logistical challenges. For starters, the fin dragged like a sunken brick. His signature tail flick was reduced to a sad little wiggle, and his stealth factor was effectively zero. Any stealth was out the window the moment the fin hit the surface and cut a dark triangle of terror across the water. He was a floating warning label: “Might be overcompensating.” And the koi—those slow, sashimi-colored nobodies—began to talk. Whisper, gossip, giggle behind their gills. “Who does he think he is?” sneered Bubbles, a koi with the personality of a beige carpet. “It’s not even saltwater.” “That’s not even his fin,” added another, who once tried to mate with a decorative rock and now fancied herself an intellectual. But Morty didn’t care. He had something more dangerous than credibility—he had delusion and audacity, which, in the right combination, could move mountains or at least knock over a moderately tall water lily. Then came the day the humans noticed. Oh yes. The human child, in his grubby Crocs and marshmallow-sticky hands, squatted by the pond, eyes wide as sewer lids. “Mom,” he screeched. “There’s a shark in the pond!” And Morty, oh sweet, ridiculous Morty, surfaced with dramatic flair. Fin cutting the surface. Pose immaculate. Gaze fierce. He was a badass. He was a beast. He was... netted immediately and dumped in a fishbowl for observation. The fall was fast. The bowl was small. The delusion? Still very, very large. “They had to remove me,” Morty rationalized, swirling dramatically against the glass. “Too powerful for containment. Too dangerous. I was a threat to the balance of nature. And the ducks.” He would return. He would rise again. With a bigger fin. A better strap. Maybe even a second fin. Who said sharks only get one? And somewhere, deep in the pond’s silent reeds, the koi whispered nervously. Because they knew— Morty was full of crap… but damn it, sometimes crap floats. The Return of the Fin King Morty spent four full days swirling in that sad, little glass bowl like some kind of imprisoned celebrity—part sideshow attraction, part cautionary tale. The humans poked, filmed, and posted his every motion. “Goldfish with shark fin! 😂 #TinyTerror #FakeAF”. Millions of views. Millions of laughs. And still, Morty plotted. Oh yes. Beneath the filter’s hum and beside a tiny ceramic pirate chest, revenge simmered like pondscum in July. “Laugh it up, land apes,” he muttered, gnawing a flake of food with the quiet rage of a disgraced general. “But I will return. And this time, I’m bringing teeth.” Day five, Morty made his move. Under cover of toddler nap time, a careless elbow tipped the bowl. He rode the wave like Poseidon in a Vegas stunt show, flopping gloriously onto the linoleum, screaming (internally) all the way. The humans panicked. Shrieks. Towels. Tears. One of them yelled something about “emotional damage to the child.” Morty just gasped and blinked like an Oscar-winner in a dying scene—pure drama, pure manipulation. He survived. Again. And with great triumph came great reward: they released him back into the pond. **HIS** pond. The prodigal fin had returned. But things had changed. The koi had leveled up. One had a decorative tattoo—just algae, but the effect was vaguely intimidating. Another now spoke in cryptic philosophical riddles after binge-floating near the garden Buddha. And worst of all, someone had installed a plastic alligator head in the water to “keep the birds away.” As if that would scare Morty the Menace. He needed a new plan. A bigger splash. So he doubled down on everything. Two fins now—one dorsal, one tail. He crafted them from a child’s broken flip-flop and a tiny action figure’s shield. Resourceful. Trashy. Perfect. With hot glue stolen from a garage cobweb and bits of string, Morty rigged himself into a full-blown aquatic warrior. Think Mad Max, but fishier and less vegan. He emerged like an absolute lunatic—tail thrashing, fins wobbling, eyes bugged like a sleep-deprived tax auditor. The pond erupted. Frogs dove. Minnows screamed. The koi? They froze. There was no denying it: he looked insane. “I AM MORTY, BRINGER OF CHAOS,” he bellowed. “I HAVE ASCENDED. I AM TWO-FINNED NOW.” “You look like a floating garage sale,” someone whispered. “EAT MY BUBBLES,” Morty screamed back. But this time, something weird happened. The fear? It didn’t fade—it mutated. They weren’t just laughing at him now. They were respecting the madness. Koi started mimicking his movements. A turtle did a lap in his honor. Even the heron gave him a single, slow nod from across the yard—predator to predator. Or, you know, predator to deeply confused maniac with a plastic fin complex. Still. It counted. The pond had changed. But so had Morty. He wasn’t just pretending anymore. The line between bluff and belief had dissolved. He was the fin. The delusion had become identity. And identity? That’s power, baby. Now, when the human child squats by the pond, marshmallow residue crusting his lip, he doesn't laugh. He watches. Reverent. Maybe a little scared. And Morty? Morty swims slow. He lets the fin breach the surface just slightly. Just enough to make someone spill their juice box. He doesn’t need to be big. He doesn’t need to be real. He just needs to be bold enough to believe his own bullshit. And in this pond, that’s how legends are made. Morty the Fin King.Tiny. Loud. Unhinged. Unstoppable. And somewhere, across the rippling surface of the koi kingdom, a single whisper floats: “Sometimes, all it takes is a fake fin and the balls to wear it.” Epilogue: The Gospel According to Morty Years later—okay, more like six months, which is forever in goldfish terms—Morty lives on not as a fish, but as a myth. A damp, slightly delusional, wildly over-accessorized myth. The koi now wear fins. Not real ones, mind you, just painted-on symbols of rebellion. There’s a secret “Fin Club,” complete with weekly surface meetings and algae cocktails. No frogs allowed. The turtle has started a podcast. Humans still visit the pond. They peer in, whisper, point. “That’s where the shark-fish came from,” they say, like they’ve stumbled upon some cryptid spawning ground. Kids press sticky faces to the glass, hoping for a glimpse. Some say they’ve seen him. Others claim he’s long gone. But under the water, just past the lily pads, a faint shimmer sometimes cuts the surface. A triangle. A ripple. A legacy. And in the pond’s darkest corner, beneath a sunken Tonka truck and a pile of abandoned fish flakes, something stirs. A bubble. A blub. A whisper: “Don’t ever let them tell you you’re just a goldfish.” Because Morty proved it—loudly, ridiculously, triumphantly: fake fins, real guts. Long live the lie. Bring Morty Home (But Maybe Not in a Bowl) If you felt the bold, briny energy of Morty the Fin King ripple through your soul, good news—now you can bring his legendary nonsense into your actual habitat. Art Print – Display Morty's greatest moment on your wall. Warning: may inspire overconfidence. Framed Print – For when you're feeling extra fancy, like Morty in his two-fin era. Shower Curtain – Start every day with aquatic ambition and unnecessary drama. Bath Towel – Dry off with the confidence of a goldfish who thinks he’s a predator. Brave Little Liar because sometimes, greatness starts with a fake fin and a load of gall.