Deep in the Atlantic Ocean, there lived an Atlantic cod
named Athena. Athena was in a group of other cod for a large portion of her
life. She was quite the odd one out of the group since she had a tendency to
wander around more than any of the other cod.
One day while the group of cod were swimming around near the
center of the Atlantic Ocean, Athena decided to swim a little farther away from
the group. As she swam farther and farther away
from her group, she saw some interesting figures in the distance that got bigger
as she got closer to them.
Worried that she would get lost, Athena looked back to see
where the group was. When she looked back, all she could see was just the
vast blue ocean.
“HEY, GUYS!” she shouted. “WHERE ARE YOU?”
No one replied to Athena. She tried swimming back to
the group but she did not know how far she had swum or which way she came from.
After swimming for a long time, Athena was still in the same spot she had been in when
she saw the interesting figures.
“Why do I keep ending up in this same spot?” wondered Athena.
“Hmmm. Maybe there might be some fish near those weird-looking things.”
Athena then began to swim closer to the distant figures. As
she got closer, she started to see buildings, statues, and wagons. Athena was
curious about all these new things that started to appear out of the deep blue
ocean and she swam faster to see them up close.
“What are these weird things? Why are they here? Did fish
create this?” asked Athena to herself.
Athena swam around this underwater city looking at every
statue and every building. She spent a long time looking around and noticed a
really big building that was right in the center of the whole area. Athena
swam right up to the building and saw some words that were inscribed on the
front of it.
“The City of Atlantis. Huh. I wonder what that could be,”
pondered Athena as she entered the structure.
When Athena entered the building she saw more stone figures shaped like humans next the walls
of the hallway. However, these were different from the ones she saw outside of
the building because they were talking and moving around.
“Whoa. What are these things? How come they’re making noises?”
asked Athena.
Athena watched the moving stone humans in amazement and listened
to their conversations. She was so intrigued by them that she almost forgot to
ask them how to get out of the city.
“Hey, you. How do I get out of here?” said Athena to one of
the statues.
The statue just kept talking to the others as if it could
not hear Athena or even acknowledge that she was even there. With no reply,
Athena swam towards the statue and rammed her head into the chest of it.
“Hey! What just poked me?” asked the statue.
“What are you talking about? There’s nothing there,” said
another statue.
After Athena’s attempt to get the statue’s attention, they
resumed talking as if she wasn’t even there.
“Am I invisible to them?” wondered Athena as she ventured
down the hallway towards the center of the building.
When Athena reached the end of the hallway, she saw a big
circular room with many more statues talking and walking around. She swam above
them near the ceiling to observe their actions.
Athena saw that there were two statues holding long sticks
with a sharp triangular tip and a large rectangular board standing at the
entrance of the hallway where she came from. Then from the hallway to about
two-thirds of the circular room, there were statues with wagons that had stone human food
shaped items that were being traded with the other statues that were walking
around.
 |
| A Roman soldier that is closely similar to the guards in the story |
“What are they doing? Why are they here? Are they fish? They
don’t look like fish,” wondered Athena. “Hey, that guy looks a bit peculiar.”
She swam towards the back of the room where there was a
statue that wore an interesting looking hat sitting on a large chair. Next to
the statue with the hat were two more statues with sharp sticks and long
boards.
“King Atlas, your people request a few words of wisdom from
you,” said one of the statues to the one on the chair.
“Alright then,” said King Atlas as he stood up.
All of the other statues, as well as Athena, stopped and looked at King Atlas as
he stepped forward from his throne.
“People of Atlantis, beware the yellow snow. Do not consume
it because you will get sick and die,” advised King Atlas in his booming voice
and sat back down.
"What is this 'yellow snow' that he is talking about?" wondered Athena.
The whole room cheered with happiness. Then after the words
of their king, they all went back to trading and chatting.
“That King Atlas guy seems to be the leader of these stone humans. I
must go and see if I can talk to him,” said Athena.
She swam next to King Atlas and began to speak to him, but
in that instant Athena remembered that no one could see or hear her. Athena then
wondered if she was ever going to get out of the City of Atlantis and be with her
group again.
Author’s Note.
The adventure of Athena and the Lost City of Atlantis was inspired by the
Looking-Glass House from the Looking-Glass unit. Both female characters venture
to a world that is different from their own. In the original story, Alice goes
through a mirror world while Athena somehow stumbles upon the Lost City of
Atlantis. My story goes through the views of a fish instead of a human like the
original story. The main characters both witness something that is not part of
their own world. I switched the species and the settings to create a new environment
where magical and mythical things can happen. In Alice’s mirror world, she
encounters tiny chess pieces that are walking and talking about. Even though
she can interact with them, they cannot see or hear her at all. I used this
aspect of the story to when Athena meets the statues in the large building.
I added the image of an Atlantic cod just in case some
readers do not know how they looked. The Atlantic cod is a shoaling fish
which mean that they only group for social reasons and feeding. The picture of
the portrayed City of Atlantis gives some visual thought of how it could look.
Bibliography. “Through
the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There” by Lewis Carroll (1871). Web
Source:
Internet Archive
