Fishing:

Me and my wife decided to take a trip to the Florida keys down from our home in the suburbs of Miami. The trip was picturesque and the drive unusually pleasant, we didn’t hit traffic and the weather was beautiful. After arriving to our hotel room and getting settled we decide to do some sunset fishing. I hadn’t fished in a long time and was excited to get out there. We arrived at one of the points along the highway where people cast off in the keys, a narrow paved pedestrian path lined with people casting off often multiple lines. The look of frustration on the weary fishermen was immediately noticeable to me. I went and talked to one of the fishermen and he said he hadn’t gotten a single bite all day. Undeterred we set up and cast off and within just one minute I had something. I’m not too familiar with the various kinds of fish off the coast of the keys so I can’t readily identify the kind of fish it was, It was small and somewhat triangular and had a greenish pattern to it. Regardless it was somewhat small and we weren’t prepared to cook any fish so I just threw it back. My wife didn’t have any luck however within another 15 minutes or so I got a bite. To my surprise it was the same fish. At first I thought it just the same kind of fish but something about it was peculiar and I had the thought that it was literally the same fish.

I threw it back thoroughly confused, thinking that it was very strange for a fish to bite two times for the same person with so many people fishing. As I unhooked it I had the uncanny feeling that it was staring at me in a way most unlike a fish. Another unknown period of time passed and I got another bite, snapping me out of the daze that the strange fish had left me in. It was barely a struggle and I reeled it in and as I pulled it up I almost dropped the bar. I knew that without a doubt, this was the same fish. At this point I commented to my wife about it and she laughed and made a joke that maybe the fish was intellectually deficient but something about it was so uncanny to me. I hadn’t ever really experienced anything like this and I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was staring at me, with its unblinking eye, in the most penetrating fashion. Out of something like fear or frustration I decided to just launch it right on the hook as a perverse kind of bait. It actually just flew off the hook and slammed into the water. I was sure it was dead the way it slapped the water and sank, the bridges on the Florida keys highway are a decent distance up, maybe 20-30 feet during low tide. That entire experience put me off fishing and my wife hadn’t gotten a single bite the entire time so we packed up and headed back to the room. I couldn’t shake the feeling of being stared at by a fish but I then thought this totally ridiculous and tried to move on and enjoy our weekend trip. We decided on seafood for dinner. I order a whole fried fish for us to share. The restaurant was mostly empty save for us which is strange because it was very well reviewed and this was a Friday in the high season. To my horror, when the plate came, it was not just the same kind of fish, but somehow I knew, it was the very same fish, deep fried mouth agape. It was staring at me again.

>>40682610 (OP)
>>40682612
I feel like this is a metaphor for alchemy somehow, but I'm too dumb to decode it.