The Thing About Jellyfish: Part 5

A well-written procedure section is fairly straightforward.

Their stingers are coiled like harpoons, millions of invisible weapons just waiting.

Jellyfish don’t get bogged down by drama, love, friendship, or sorrow.

Someone shifted in a chair, and the chair screeched. It was so loud I cringed.

And because your image is hazy through the glass, and you are on the other side of the water, you are the one who looks like a ghost.

The back of my neck throbs. One of my eyelids spasms. I grip the sink and try to look in the mirror, but everything is blurry.

I didn’t like thinking about predators and prey, about a rabbit thrashing in a fox’s jaws.

The man had a little lisp and he was describing pollination, which he described as nature’s way to reproduce.

Mrs. Turton looked up from her desk. “Ah, Mr. Maloney. Have you completed your bibliography?”

“Yeah,” he said, sort of sheepishly. He handed her a paper.

But two days of silence is unbearable.

I would have pointed out that she hadn't exactly answered my question, but then I noticed how grim her mouth was, the way all those tight lines radiated out from the edges of her lips.

I would have pointed out that she hadn't exactly answered my question, but then I noticed how grim her mouth was, the way all those tight lines radiated out from the edges of her lips.

So I don't want to talk about that, just like I don't want to talk about that droning organ that played so slowly and sadly that it took me almost the whole song to realize it was playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

Then her hand was on my shoulder, and for just a moment, she was inexplicably next to me as I moved through the water.

Mom was in her work clothes, but her hair was disheveled.

His lab was stark white, and it sat on the water—not a building at the edge of the water, like the aquarium.

I was on the verge of understanding something in that moment.

There’s always a sentence that says something like this: Airline policy clearly states passengers age twelve and over may travel with no adult supervision as long as they have a valid boarding pass.

One day, she showed us a video in which a scientist described what he called “the most astounding fact,” which was that all living things are composed of the atoms of collapsed stars.

I thought that was maybe what my English teacher would call an oxymoron, because you cannot truly have freedom if someone is chasing you.

I copied all of it: the four trapezoids that came together in a kind of circle, which was the logo of the Chase Freedom credit card.

On the day of the earthworm dissection, Justin and I sat in the science lab, staring down at the tray in front of us.

“You know what? I think we should give this guy a name,” he said. “He should have some dignity.”

“Ah.” He furrowed his brow. “Well...before I take it,” he started slowly, “it’s like everything comes in at once, so fast I can’t quite grab on to any of it.”

There were wildfires out west, landslides on the other side of the world.

And then I heard the announcer say a name I recognized: Diana Nyad.
“...is making final preparations for her fifth attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark tank,” the announcer said. “Her previous attempts were foiled by jelly—”

Dad swerved around a car that had merged into his lane.

In school the next day, my last day there, I felt a strange sort of elation.

I wanted to be distracted by their energy and conversation.

I saw no trace of the confident coach he was today.

“I just hate showing houses in the winter. Everything always looks so bleak.”

“I don’t know,” she mused. “Maybe summer’s not that far away.”

There was such a gulf between my insides and outsides, between what was in my heart and what I was putting into the world.

Over time, as people forget you, your silhouette gradually fades into darkness until the final time anyone says your name on this planet.