The fish that shouts apocalypse

 Some deliriously weird news from the BBC:

"[C]o-worker Luis Nivelo, a Christian, was about to kill a carp to be made into gefilte fish in the city's New Square Fish Market in January when it began shouting in Hebrew. 

"It said 'Tzaruch shemirah' and 'Hasof bah'," Mr Rosen later told the New York Times newspaper. 

[It] essentially means [in Hebrew] that everyone needs to account for themselves because the end is nigh."

It's a magical realist story, with a tinge of the Gothic.  And it gets better:

A disbelieving Mr Rosen then rushed to the back of the store, only to hear the fish identifying itself as the soul of a local Hasidic man who had died the previous year.

It instructed him to pray and study the Torah, but Mr Rosen admitted that in a state of panic he attempted to kill the fish, injuring himself in the process and ending up in hospital.

Ultimately,

The fish was eventually killed by Mr Nivelo and sold.

Finally, another New York touch: "'Ah, enough already about the fish,' Mr Rosen said."

PS: if this is a fish speaker, is someone at the Beeb trying out a really obscure Frank Herbert joke?

PPS: does the BBC run pranks on days besides 1 April?

(via Jesse Walker; image from carabou)