Page 94 of Florescentia

“A seal,” I repeated. I moved along the glass until I reached the neighboring tank. This one was full of rocks and strange plants.

Small fish bumbled from rock to rock like pollinating bees. Learning about the animals in books was one thing; it was a different thing entirely to see them—especially through the eyes of a new body and an open mind.

“Coral,” I remembered, from one of the books in her library, “and octopus.” I laughed, pressing my finger to the glass as I looked back at her. “They look just like the illustration.”

She nodded tiredly, standing beside me to see it.

Her face neared the glass, and the light from the water made her markings look like they were glowing again.

The more time I spent in this body, the more I felt some sort of understanding about her. There was a sense of longing in her, always. Not just as a cure for loneliness, but a desire to know things. Except it was like the more she understood, the more stoic she became.

My hand twitched by my side; her hand was right there. I could touch it, tuck my fingers between hers.

My pinkie brushed against hers.

First she looked down at her hand, then up at me. A wave of melancholy settled in my chest.

“Why does the aquarium upset you?” I asked.

Her gaze hardened for a moment before it settled. It wasn’t my intention to intrude on her mind, or her feelings.

She shrugged as she thought, returning her gaze back to the water. Her brow furrowed, much like it did when she was trying to read or when she had to do any mathematics on the margins of whatever scrap paper she could reach.

“All of these animals are the last of their kind,” she said. “The octopus,” she said, pointing, “is one of the most intelligent species on this earth.”

I stared back into the water. The octopus tucked itself comfortably between the corals, the blue rings on its skin flashing when fish came too close.

“Yet she is alone, and she can’t bring back her species. She will never know another like her, and she will never know the world she came from. She will only know a tank, her handler, and feeding time.”

“Why do they not return them?”

“Because we’ve ruined their home, and we must accept that this one, we couldn’t save.” She sighed, lifting her chin as she took in the scene. “All of them. We’ve let them all down. And we now have a quiet ocean. First the corals, then the fish species dwindled, then everything that comes after it. The whales were last, and no one has seen any for at least eighty years. The only pieces of them we have are skeletons and recordings of their songs.”

“Why prevent the inevitable?”

Her brows further tensed.

“If they are the last, why keep them?”

“The thought of being the last being on Earth is scary for us. Preservation is important to most. They want to remember, despite how many things they may never know because they accidentally destroyed it. These animals are that, but more tangible. Trapped for display, to remember them for as long as we can. But also a reminder of what we’ve done, and what could happen to us too.”

“Do you want to be remembered?” I stared at the side of her face; she still refused to look directly at me.

“No,” she said, beginning to walk to the next tank, “I don’t think so. I think some damage can never be undone, so there is no point.”

“Is hope not part of their keeping? There must be some, if enough people thought it was important to save them, even in memory.”

We stopped in front of a darker tank. We couldn’t see anything at first. Then, emerging from the dark, a blue glow.

“Jellyfish,” she said, “these can be found in the wild, but they stay in the depths, safe from us.”

“Us,” I repeated, touching the glass.

The translucent form moved, in no rush. The bell shape puffed along, its trailing ribbons twirling through the water as effortlessly as smoke from a candle. The creature was remarkably large. But what was truly remarkable was its lack of . . . everything. No brain, no organs, yet alive.

“Maybe it’s as old as you,” she said.

Was that a jest?