Streets paved with fish in Alaskan El Dorado

I’ve lived in Kodiak long enough that first-time experiences have grown rare, so I was moderately surprised when I stepped out of my front door Wednesday morning and onto a 30-inch halibut.
My second thought (right after, where did I last see Luca Brasi?) was, how am I going to explain this at the office?
It may come as a surprise to readers who know this column as the shrine to veracity I always intended, but sometimes, some of my colleagues doubt my assertions.
As a kid from the Midwestern suburbs, where fresh fish are — as who should say — uncommon underfoot, I have some understanding of their doubt.
On the other hand, I have also lived in Kenai, where the tide brings in all kinds of stuff, and if you have to step over a few herring or a waterlogged crate of Nikes to get to your car in the morning, nobody considers it worth mentioning.
My third thought was, cool — here’s my chance to try out www.whatdoesyouromenmean.com. There, between “entrails” and “fruitcake,” I found “flatfish, stepping on (morning)” and learned that either the Greek empire or the Persian empire will fall. No specific dates were given, so I pulled my investments from both, just to be safe.
But gods who leave important messages like that with a copy editor on the other side of the world have their own credibility problems, so I spent some time exploring other hypotheses.
I quickly rejected the idea of a halibut just getting lost. While I do not ask an animal with a brain the size of gummy bear for an opinion on public funding of health care, I’m reasonably sure they understand the difference between the bottom of the ocean and my doorstep.
Did an eagle drop it there? When I was camping near the beach in Ninilchik, I saw an eagle swoop into a stream and fly out with a live halibut. The eagle took its catch to a nearby tree and started eating, but then dropped it a few minutes later out of exasperation with a raven that lighted on the same branch and wouldn’t shut up about some investment opportunity in Baghdad.
It was almost a disappointment to find out later, by a roundabout message, that a friendly neighbor left me the fish. The moral? We need to invent a pen that writes on slime so as to leave explanatory notes on gift fish.
Meanwhile, thanks for the offer, neighbor. I couldn’t refuse.

Kodiak resident Drew Herman’s award-winning column Out of the Loop has readers in more than 40 countries, for all anyone knows.