Ocean Bestiary

Month: April, 2015

Love Nest

He was in love.

She was coming to dinner tonight. He had rehearsed many times his proposal, a promise of love and a shared life. She arrived late: A wave of perfume capable of melting his heart.

They spoke of everything and nothing to break the ice during dinner. Afterwards, with a full belly, they moved into the serious business of love. He looked into her blue-violet eyes and felt his courage disappear. She was so beautiful, and he had so little.

In a whisper, he spoke his proposal:

“I don’t have much. But what is mine is yours. Stay here with me. Have our children. I will love you forever”

She listened to the same promises others have made before. When in love, they always say the same, she thought.  But this one was sincere.

“Yes”- she said-“I will love you forever. We’ll have children. But I don’t want to spend my days living inside the rectum of a sea cucumber. We should move to the new high rise condos at the reef crest.”

So he learned the hard way that the male proposes, and the female disposes the fancy headquarters where the proposal is consummated.

The newlyweds left the safety of the humble sea cucumber’s ass, and swam all the way to the promised luxury.

The pearlfishes never saw the moray eel ambushing their progress until it was too late to escape.

Pearlfish hiding in a sea cucumber. Iridescent oil pastels. Credit: Sarah Frias-torres

Pearlfish hiding in a sea cucumber. Iridescent oil pastels. Credit: Sarah Frias-Torres

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Light Show

The crowd was pleased with the show.

Hiding in the twilight, they could see the drama unfolding. One of them, the one who got the short end of the sea whip, was blinded by the light.

The big spherical eye was on it. Fixated. It moved around the blinded creature with strange noisy fins.

But what was this strange eye made of? One thousand meters deep, the white light coming out of that eye was spectacular

Cachalot says the eye has creatures inside called humans. He has seen them way up where the ocean meets the air. Architeuthis thinks Cachalot is full of it, because she has never seen such creatures herself. But being a giant squid, she prefers to say nothing and keep quiet while staying within tentacle distance of the sperm whale.

Then it happens. The eye has a transparent mouth. It sucks in the startled fish. The crowd roars with ten thousand different voices, each one from a unique creature unknown to the spherical invader.

The big eye jettisons to the far away ocean surface with its precious cargo.

Great news! the humans just discovered one new fish.

Imaginary (or yet to be discovered) deep sea octopus. Iridescent oil pastels on paper. Credit: Sarah Frias-Torres

Imaginary (or yet to be discovered) deep sea octopus. Iridescent oil pastels on paper. Credit: Sarah Frias-Torres