Suppose one were a fish. No finer place to live than this. Falls continually drowning air within the pool so that it was a pleasure simply to breathe. Like (supposing one were not a water-breather) the high, fresh, wind-renewed air of an alpine meadow. Wonderful, and thoughtful of them so to provide for him, supposing that they thought of his or anyone's happiness or comfort. And here were no predators, and few competitors, because (though a fish couldn't be supposed to know it) the stream above was shallow and stony and so was the stream below, so that nothing approaching him in size came into the pool to contest with him for the constant fall of bugs from the dense and various woods which overhung. Really, they had thought of everything, supposing they thought of anything.
Yet (supposing that it was not his choice at all to be a swimmer here) how condign and terrible a punishment, bitter an exile. Mounted in liquid glass, unable to breathe, was he to make back-and-forth forever, biting at mosquitoes? He supposed that to a fish that taste was the toothsome matter of his happiest dreams. But if one were not a fish, what a memory, the endless multiplication of those tiny drops of bitter blood.
--from Little, Big, John Crowley