It was a beautiful speckled trout. I pulled it onto the dock and bent down to remove the hook, then I watched as it flipped around next to me, first briskly, then slowly, and then limply, something I had never seen before. It stared up with shiny, black, round eyes, gills flapping, breathing belabored. I’d never just sat and observed something die before. Okay, maybe an insect, but not anything that could breathe and stare. I picked up the trout’s slippery body, paused for a minute, then tossed it back into the welcoming water. Sometimes you just shouldn’t overthink things.
Whether reading, writing, editing or revising, Lucia Blau immerses herself in words and is taken with the idea of telling a story briefly and concisely.