Reading Rainbow

J.J. Krehbiel

HP LOVECRAFT

Good evening. You’re watching Reading Rainbow. LeVar Burton is out this week, so I am your guest host, HP Lovecraft. Those of you familiar with my work may find it strange that I am guest hosting a children’s show, given that my own body of literature delves into the existential nightmares of the deep, dark abyss we call our universe. But do not fret your little heads, for I believe in educating the innocent, naively ignorant children. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s hear a charismatic youngster give a book report. Hello, little girl. What’s your name?

SUSIE

Hi! I’m Susie. And today, I’m going to tell you about my favorite book, The Rainbow Fish.

HP LOVECRAFT

Hmmmm… fascinating. A fish made out of waves of light and color like a rainbow. Yet there are colors in the spectrum of light undetectable to our primitive human eyes. What could this devilish fish be hiding in the unknown spectrum?”

SUSIE

Uh… no, that’s not what it’s about. The Rainbow Fish takes place deep in the ocean.

HP LOVECRAFT

Aha, yes! In the cavernous dark trenches of the seven seas. Here there be monsters!

SUSIE

No, there’s no monsters. It’s just fish.

HP LOVECRAFT

Oh no, little girl! The sea is home to many a fierce monster, chief of which reside in the sunken city of the Great Old Ones awaiting for their dark priest Ka-hul-lhoo.

SUSIE

What?

HP LOVECRAFT

You might be more familiar with the mispronunciation, Cthulhu.

SUSIE

Ca-who-loo?

HP LOVECRAFT

Cthulhu! The High Priest of the Great Old Ones? The Great Dreamer? The Sleeper of R’lyeh?

SUSIE

Are you having a stroke, mister?

HP LOVECRAFT

He’s got wings and an octopus head.

SUSIE

The Rainbow Fish is about a beautiful fish with shiny, colorful scales. They called him, Rainbow Fish.

HP LOVECRAFT

Hmmm… Rainbow Fish, Great Beast of the Sunken City and Arbinger of Ka-hul-oo!

SUSIE

No, it’s just Rainbow Fish. Quit trying to make this about you and your freaky books. One day, a plain looking fish swam up to the Rainbow Fish and asked him for one of his scales.

HP LOVECRAFT

Ha! An ugly beggar fish. Sounds like a New York City dweller, not of good New England stock.

SUSIE

Hmph! The Rainbow Fish was rude to the other fish and wouldn’t share any of his scales.

HP LOVECRAFT

A wise move. The poverty of this New Yorker filth is not the prerogative of our Rainbow Fish.

SUSIE

Well no one wanted to be friends with the Rainbow Fish because he wouldn’t share!

HP LOVECRAFT

Ah, the role of the social outcast. He is too clever for those simpleton fish undoubtedly of lesser races.

SUSIE

Whoa! Are you a racist?

HP LOVECRAFT
Oh yes. Even my peers in the nineteen-tens thought I was hella problematic… I don’t even like certain kinds of white people.

SUSIE

I just want to finish my book report.

HP LOVECRAFT

Yes, do tell us how our hero’s exile is unfolding.

SUSIE

The freaking fish gives his scales away to the other fish, and he gets a lot of friends.

HP LOVECRAFT

Wow. That is a truly awful message to tell children.

SUSIE

It’s about sharing!

HP LOVECRAFT

No, it’s about a fish ripping his own scales from his flesh just to buy fake friendships.

SUSIE

They’re not fake friends.

HP LOVECRAFT

And what becomes of these friends when are wretched rainbow fish, stripped naked of his former glory, no longer has any scales to give?

SUSIE

They… they.... they always leave!

HP LOVECRAFT

Yes, Susie, they always leave. And the rainbow fish is all alone. Just like how each of us is really all alone in this deep, dark, uncaring universe.

SUSIE

I gotta talk to my agent to get me on Zoom!

HP LOVECRAFT

Anyways, that’s all the time we have this week for Reading Rainbow. Join us next week with special guest host, Stephen King. Buh-bye now!”