The Life of Marv

Jeez, what was this world coming to! In the good old days (1 hour ago) - when the air had been so much cleaner and the children much more polite - Marv's knees hadn't hurt as much. Now even his eyeballs reminded him he was getting older by the second. 

Marv remembered his childhood like it was yesterday (because it was). He had been a mischievous little brat, always ready to execute a complex slide over the water, risking bumping into one of the old folk and getting an earful. He remembered how the sun had shone and how the water had sparkled in his youth, how he had felt like 'the most vital link in the food web of freshwater ecosystems'. 

'Aaaah', Marv the Mayfly thought. Life is truly short and you have to live it to the fullest. All 24 hours of it. 

Footnote: I wrote this as part of a deal with my daughter, who has to write her own version.