The Listening Table · Inspired by As I Lay Dying

My Mother
Is a Fish.

A slow activity for a loud world. One card surfaces out of the storm, one sound fills the room, one question opens — and then you talk. No score, no timer racing you. The conversation is the game.

Local-first: everything stays in this browser until you export it.

Antique title card: My Mother Is a Fish — a game of language, symbol, and association

Before You Begin

Set the Table

Sit where everyone can hear. One device, face up in the middle, works best. The cards arrive one at a time — each with its own sound and a single question meant to be argued with out loud.

Before You Leave the Table

What changed in your reading?

Session Evidence

Table Journal

Rules & Learning Design

How the Table Works

I

A card surfaces

Out of the storm, slowly. Its sound plays — hammering, a river, a heartbeat. Don’t talk yet. Let everyone hear it end.

II

One question opens

A single prompt, made to be disagreed with. There is no correct answer waiting behind it.

III

You talk

As long as the conversation is alive. Point at passages. Interrupt kindly. Change your mind in public.

IV

Keep one line

If capture is on, write down the sharpest thing anyone said before the next card comes. That line is the evidence.

For instructors

This is a discussion protocol, not a quiz. The sound is the on-ramp: it gives the table something shared and wordless to react to before anyone has to be smart. Works as a full-class activity with one projected screen, or in small groups with one device each. The journal export collects captured lines and the closing reflection for assessment.

Quotations are drawn from the public-domain text; verify against your classroom edition before formal use.

Sound credits

Background song: throat singing by boobaloo (Freesound #318638). Card sounds, all Freesound: hammering by ct9smart (#70313) · fish splash by paulprit (#507094) · horse by Kubuzz (#347036) · river by Tom_Kaszuba (#660265) · church bells by mudflea2 (#703590) · crow by Mish7913 (#741366) · buckboard wagon by craigsmith (#437085) · heartbeat by daandraait (#249716) · creaking trees by Garuda1982 (#624737) · drone by martinbeltov (#244196). Creative Commons 0 / Attribution.