“It’s a bird… it’s a plane… it’s -”

“A fucking fish. Can you please be serious for a minute?”

“Best I can do is 30 seconds and even that’s a stretch.”

I glare at him, my momentary distraction causing me to almost lose hold of the slimy, wriggling creature in my fish. The torrential rain pelts my face and hands, aiding the desperate creature in its quest for freedom. “You swore we wouldn’t catch anything! What the hell are we supposed to do with this?”

“We didn’t have any bait! This has got to be the dumbest fish in existence.”

“Lucky us,” I mutter to myself. Doing my best to blink the water out of my eyes, I carefully swing the fish closer to my face to inspect it better. It really is a beautiful creature, with scales that glisten different colors as the light hits it. Thick droplets stream down its sides as it gasps for air and I resist the urge to reach out a finger and stroke it to see if the scales are really as smooth as they look.

Suddenly, the fish attempts to fling itself out of my hands and its tail slaps me painfully in the face. With my stinging cheek, it no longer looks quite so vibrant. It hits the ground and I grapple with it, wrapping the fishing line around my wrist until I’m able to grab the creature again, though it still squirms as though it can sense the freedom of its stream just a few feet away.

“Can we just throw it back in?” I ask, eyeing the creature with a newfound hatred. I’m thinking I should probably inspect the tail for barbs but now I’m nervous about putting my face that close to it again. I try to wipe the water out of my eyes again, but my hands are now covered in mud from my tussle with the fish and I only manage to give myself some kind of half-assed mud facial.

“It’s got a hook stuck in its gills. If Fish and Safety find out, they’ll be pissed. Plus, we don’t even have fishing licenses.”

“You were just supposed to be teaching me how to cast a line! And now we’re stuck out here in a thunderstorm -”

“I actually haven’t heard any thunder yet.”

I glare at him. “We’re stuck in a massive rainstorm with a fish we don’t know how to cook -”

“Who said anything about cooking it?”

“What else are we going to do with it?” The rain is coming down even harder now and I can barely see through the water in my eyes. I realize the fish has stopped wiggling in my hands and look down, meeting its slowly blinking eyes. “It’s dying,” I say, prodding its side slightly. The scales bend under my finger and I grimace. I’ve never been great with animals.

“It should go back in the water,” he says, reaching out and pulling it from my hands. As it slips free, it gives a feeble squirm and the tail slaps against my hand. There are definitely barbs on it.

Carefully, he slips the hook from the fish’s gills. It takes a few tries as the rain-slicked hook twists and slips for a few moments before he can get it out.

He carefully makes his way to the edge of the stream, slipping a few times in the thick mud and I watch as he lowers the fish into the water. I hold my breath as a second passes, and then another and the fish doesn’t move. Then, suddenly, it gives a great shake and darts through the water, seeming not to have been affected by the events of the past few minutes.

As I watch it swim away, I’m astonished to feel the rain begin to lighten, and a few moments later, it lets up completely and the sun shines down from the sky above, warming my skin and making the water sparkle with color, just like the scales of the fish.