Ba pulled gruffly on the fishing line in his hand. The line, thin as a whip of grass, shook in the morning fog and refused to come up. Ba pulled again, sensing that the struggle under the water—the struggle he couldn’t see—was a difficult one.

Perhaps his line was caught in the mouth of a wickerfish, pulling the hook, flopping it’s feathery green fins like it was the last thing it would ever do. Ba chuckled at this thought; if he had any say, it was the last thing the wickerfish would do.

Perhaps it had stuck on the very edges of a clam or a underwater rock, and now as Ba attempted to wrench it free, it dragged the immovable object across sand and silt, ruining his newly crafted line and pole.

Ba sighed and sat back in his rotator boat. The waves crashed in little spurts against its bamboo walls, and far away, reeds and watergrass led out to a great sea.

Ba gave one more yank to his line, and then leaned over the edge of the boat.

In the dark, two orbs of light snapped open, fixating on Ba with a light like sunlight, but different. Much different.

Far, far below, something was getting ready to ruin Ba’s peaceful morning.