The Scientist

With the shell held to my ear, I can hear the entire ocean. I hear the darting fish and the gliding whales and the bottom-feeders skittering through the cloudy dust. I hear them as if they were one great creature writhing and thrashing and eating itself, dying and sinking and being reborn.

I have petitioned the King for a ship, so that I may take it to sea. I believe he thinks me mad, but he may grant my request nevertheless, to be rid of me. She may already have a name, but I am resolved to call her Eurybia.