Living in a Whale's Belly

The happiest years of Jonah's life were the ones he spent in the belly of a whale. He didn't have to strive towards anything, simply because there was nothing to strive towards. He didn't even have to feed himself, since the whale's stomach supplied Jonah's organism with a perfect combination of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Of course, it was stuffy in there, and it smelt fishy, but in general Jonah found his situation quite bearable. In those times he loved to talk about symbiosis and about the lengthy and mutually profitable coexistence of a man and the outer world. Even so, he was aware of the fact that neither time nor the outer world exists in the belly of a big fish.

One day Jonah got an idea in his head; that, namely, of freedom. He prayed unto the Lord his God for deliverance, and so the whale was instructed to spit him up on dry land, which proved to be much drier than he would expect.

Before long Jonah regretted altogether getting out of the whale, and felt sorry for himself, and spoke to the other swallowed-and-disgorged, always moaning about not living a proper life. He even started searching for another whale interested in swallowing him up. However, the whales were not in any particular hurry to let him into their interiors, and they simply drenched him with some of the water that had been processed inside them, and waved him off with their massive fins.