UNINTERlingua 2023

the ocean water started to enter his body. Realizing that his situation was precarious, Lázaro begged God to save his life, and as an answer to his prayers, suddenly he was turned into a tuna fish. A while later, Lázaro was able to mingle with the tuna that were besieging his cave. He discovered that, even as a tuna fish, he could still make use of his sword with his mouth to defend him- self, and the tuna king was so impressed that our pícaro soon became one of the king’s favorite subjects. Befriended by a tuna captain, Lázaro offered to teach the captain and his squad how to fight with swords. They scavenged swords from the ocean bottom, and soon this man turned tuna and his tuna soldiers had conquered other ocean residents. Our pícaro had even turned a captive octopus into his personal valet, and his fighting group had expanded the domain of the tuna king. In this fantastic world, Lázaro was appreciated by the king, by the captain, and had even taken a female tuna fish as his wife, who curiously had also been the king’s lover before meeting Lázaro. However, our pícaro did not mind because he felt that it was an honor, and a social improvement, to marry someone who had been a king’s lover in the past. His life in the ocean continued to prosper until his second metamorphosis took place almost four years later. Such was the trust the tuna king had in Lázaro that the king asked this man turned into a tuna to accompany thousands of tuna females to their egg-laying grounds. Unfortunately, a fishing boat was passing by at the precise time when Lázaro, with his wife, Luna, and the thousands of female tunas had arrived at their destination, and they became trapped in the fishermen’s nets. When the fishermen tried to take Lázaro’s sword away from his mouth, the jerking caused another fantastic event: a man’s arm came out via the pícaro’s mouth, followed by the face and part of his torso. This allowed Lázaro to speak as a human once more, and after beg ging the fishermen to let his wife return to the ocean, they set her free. The pícaro, however, was not as lucky. The fishermen did not let him return to sea and took him to the regio- nal duke and duchess to be shown off as an oddity. After seven days as half-man and half-tuna, Lázaro was able to convince them to finish pulling him out of his tuna skin because the half that was still inside was beginning to rot. This way, his second metamorphosis was complete. 51