My brothers threw me onto the dock today.
They never warned me how bright the sunlight was.
Or how hot.
Or dry.
“He’ll learn to flop back into the lake or he’ll die,” one of my brothers gurgled from below.
My jaws worked soundlessly as I struggled to breathe. My fins flexed. My one eye blinked blindly.
But I was suffocating in the air.
I screamed in panic and terror, but only a silent trickle of fetid, green water escaped my gaping maw.
My life flashed before me: Egg to pup; pup to lake monster. Three weeks.
What a ride.
Author’s note: My late father always told me about how his brother pushed him into a lake to help him learn to swim. I imagined what would happen if something from the lake got thrown into the air to learn to flop…
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