Aquarium

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During art period, I made a paper-mache of Inspector Bigby. I didn’t use a balloon, because I was going to be sticking him with a lot of needles. I wadded up newspaper and then wrapped it in wet strips. I would paint his head red and uniform white.

And what is this? Mr. Gustafson asked.

Inspector Bigby.

Is he part of the Buddhist pantheon?

What?

Is he one of your Buddhist gods, like the golden fish? Will he be riding in the sleigh?

No.

Well then?

I ripped Inspector Bigby into pieces, tore at the newspaper and let it fall to the floor. Then I started crying. I couldn’t help it.

Great, Mr. Gustafson said. Just what I need. Shalini, can you take Caitlin to the bathroom to cry?

Everyone was looking at me. I kept my head down as Shalini led me out by the hand. I could see her golden bracelets, hoops that slid and bounced, and we escaped down the hallway to the bathrooms.

We were twelve years old. She didn’t have any wise words for me, or even tell me things would be okay. I wasn’t able to tell her what was wrong. But I remember standing in front of the mirror, my eyes red, and she hugged me from behind. Pressed all against my back, arms pulling tight, her face tucked in close against my neck, feel of her breath. Her hair so black against my blond in the mirror. It’s the clearest image I have of us, because of that stupid mirror, and my face crumpling in self-pity, like any kid seeing herself cry.

The old man knew right away. What’s wrong? he asked.

I had found him resting on a bench near the jellyfish. I sat down and leaned against him and he put his arm around me.

It’s all right, he said.

Cold smell of his coat. He must have just arrived. Very few people here today, dark corridors warm and humid and private. Crowded in the summer, but who would go to an aquarium in December?

Did you know the jellyfish aren’t fish? I asked.

That makes sense, the old man said. I guess I didn’t really know, though.

And they’ve lived for five hundred million or maybe even seven hundred million years. They’re older than anything.

I hid against the old man and watched the jellyfish rise and fall. Slow pulse of life, made of nothing, from another world.

I can’t imagine seven hundred million years, he finally said. It doesn’t mean anything to me. Four or five times as old as dinosaurs, but who can look back before dinosaurs, before sharks? It’s the same as trying to imagine, well, I don’t know what. South America would be part of Africa then, I think, or who knows, and no birds. Can you imagine no birds? And nothing yet learned to crawl. I guess there were plants, but what kind of plants? Were there even plants? Maybe a few ferns?

There were no plants, I said. No plants on land.

Holy smokes.

I wish we had a box jellyfish, I said.

Why’s that?

They have twenty-four eyes and four brains, and two of the eyes might be able to see.

What do you mean? Don’t all eyes see?

They only sense light, jellyfish eyes. But the box jellyfish might be able to see. A jellyfish might have been the first thing to ever see.

Where do you learn this stuff?

Fish Mike.

What’s that?

He gives a talk here, every two weeks. The last one was about jellyfish.

What else did he say?

That a hundred years from now, most of the fish might be gone, and we might be back to only jellyfish. He said we should enjoy the fish now, because this is a last look.

I still can’t believe there were no plants, the old man said. I’m imagining a world of only rock and sea, nothing else, just rock and sea, and the only thing living in the sea are jellyfish. They have the entire planet to themselves. And now I hear they’re getting it back, as if time is reversing. You’re only twelve years old, but do you know that what you’ve said today is more amazing than anything I’ve heard in my entire life?

I sat up and looked at the old man. I thought he was making fun of me, but he wasn’t laughing. He seemed serious. He put his hand on my head, the way my mother sometimes did.

Caitlin, he said. I feel so lucky to be here with you.

I knew something was wrong. Even at age twelve, I knew you don’t just meet an old man like this. But I needed him, so I ignored anything that seemed creepy. I settled in against him again, his arm around me, and I looked at the jellyfish in their slow and endless pulsing, heartbeat before there was any such thing as a heart, and I felt my life become possible. The old man had said I was amazing, and in that moment, I felt I might become anything.

So what’s wrong? the old man asked. Why are you upset today? You can tell me.

I didn’t know how to speak about Inspector Bigby. He wasn’t just a man. He was part of some larger threat, my mother taken away from me, and I didn’t know if we had done anything wrong. I was just afraid, but I was afraid of everything.

I’m sorry, he said. Caitlin. You’re breathing really quickly right now. Are you okay? Are you having some kind of panic attack?

I couldn’t answer.

Caitlin. You have to calm down.

He put his hand on my chest.

God, your heart is racing. Please say something.

The old man let go of me and stood up. I’ve never been good at this, he said. I’m sorry, I have to go. He left then, walking very fast for an old man, running away, and it seemed like he was rising uphill, the floor tilting, and I was sliding downward.

Please, I said, but my voice was so quiet. I was alone in this dark thin hallway, fallen to the bottom, and I curled on the bench and watched the jellyfish above. Rings of light, moons come alive. My heart felt made of rock, dark and hard, but the jellyfish were made of something calmer, reassuring. Slow drift endless, begun so long ago. They were beautiful, and if you looked at them long enough, you could believe they were made only for beauty.

We know so much more now about ocean acidification, and I should hate the jellyfish as a sign of all that we’ve destroyed. In my lifetime, the reefs will melt away, dissolved. By the end of the century, nearly all fish will be gone. The entire legacy of humanity will be only one thing, a line of red goop in the paleo-oceanographic record, a time of no calcium carbonate shells that will stretch on for several million years. The sadness of our stupidity is overwhelming. But when I watch a moon jelly, its umbrella constellation pulsing into endless night, I think perhaps it’s all okay.