Caught

You eat, then you die. That’s just how it works on the other end of the line. Everyone knows that. But what most humans don’t know is that fish have three lives, like those wretched cats. (Fine, they’ve got nine lives. No need to rub it in.) We also have practically unlimited memories; everything we see through our glassy eyes goes right to our minds, tucked away forever. That’s probably why I remember my first life as if it were yesterday...........
I used to live in a creek. It was nice and biggish but also smallish and it had a nice blue-green color about it. The Creek was crowded, though. All of the fish were bustling about, paying no attention to anyone else; they had things to do and places to go. It was as if The Creek were an aquatic city!
If you lived in a sleepy, steady pond and asked someone to jump, they’d just ask “How high?” But in The Creek, the same fish would barely give you a flick of their fin, much less directions or where to find some grub.
So I went hungry (and a bit crazy). I’d begin to nibble at the sparse algae (or whatever that stuff was) growing on the bottom of the stream. I might have eaten some human junk once or twice, but I was too starved to tell. And when I saw that succulent, pink worm, just suspended there, of course I bit it. Ah.... That was the best thing I’d had since....since.....Oh, never mind. The crux of the matter was that it tasted delicious. Another bite was now irresistible. I eagerly snapped off a second piece of the worm; bigger this time. It tasted the same but....OW! A searing pain sliced through my lip. I struggled to break free, but to no avail. I had been caught.
All of a sudden, I began to slowly began to slowly float upwards; to the surface. The further up I went, the less moisture I felt course through me. My gills were sucked dry by the surface’s vacuum. I found myself groping for the waterlogged terrain I knew all but five seconds ago. But I lost my grip in my slippery fins and as I surfaced I began to flap mindlessly about. Never again would I feel the cool, silken embrace of the water.
My body was set on a metal grate. A blazing fire sat under it. Then, the savage human sliced it up with a Swiss Army Knife ATE it! They actually consumed my body! But no matter, for my spirit went on to swim in the Ocean of Eternity.........