For the internet’s favorite holiday Cryptic Conservatory held its most prestigeous collaborative writing event: a corpse more exquisiter than any other, stitched together line-by-line to form an immaculate whole. Here is the full text of the story written over on Ellipsus:

1. There once was a man from Nantucket, who always carried a bucket.
2. His bucket was filled with fish in order to make his greatest wish
3. But alas, sometimes wishes come true.
4. “I have wished for so long, to see these fine fish fly”.
5. And so up he’d gone, to a cliffside so high
6. He longs to see the fish soar through the skies so blue.
7. With every step he had traded his skin for scales;
8. His eyes clouded with diaphanous veils.
9. He jumped from the edge, flapped his wings (or his fins)—
10. … and this is where the transformation begins.
11. Out spilled an ocean of potential,
12. His body unraveling, soul transcendental
13. Coincidental, or maybe not? The fish he carried began to flock
14. His scales he shed and off dropped his fins.
15. For a school of friends would soon see him swim
16. They carried him forward, to a shape in the sky.
17. To where the man from Nantucket, now rests, now lies
18. And a thousand fish fall from the skies.

These illustrious contributors came together on the Cryptic Conservatory Discord for a day of clownery and cooperation:

• Anonymous, lines 2 & 6
• Graham Leech, lines 4, 10, 14, 16 & 18
• Omar Youssef, lucky lines 13, 15 & 17
• Randy Hayes, lines 3 & 8
• Seth Paxton, lines 1 & 11
• Sisi Peng, line 9
• Sunfirewings, line 7
• Xan Farley, line 5 & 12