“Can a fish dehydrate?” Daniel asked me.
“Well, yes, of course they can.” I looked into the aquarium and pondered my answer. “We need water to survive, and so do they, but they breathe it and we can’t. If we tried to do that, we would drown. This happens to them when they are out of water. They can’t breathe air so they drown when they are out of water.”
“So they don’t dehydrate?” My curious nine-year-old looked confused.
“Not through fishing. Their blood is full of salt and so they are always drinking.”
“That’s why they gulp!” He grinned.

I wrote this inspired by this week’s fandango’s flash fiction challenge and writing Wednesday.