The Princess Sofia and what lay around her

Barnacles are remarkably resilient creatures. Accustomed to the constant pounding of great waves against their fragile shells. They take pride in this fact, often touting it as a credo to the passing fish diving to escape a dangerous incoming tide. The brassiest of barnacles laughs at the scuttling crabs retreating toward the depths as the barnacles themselves are thrust upward toward the most dangerous of all elements: air. But for this barnacle, our barnacle, sinking closer and closer to the submerged shadow of the Princess Sofia, she doubted the strength of her carefully constructed shield. The pressure of the ocean grew greater, and her nerves began to shake. Do not despair, however, for our barnacle was never a typical barnacle; and unlike her chalky stagnant counter parts she had prepared herself for an adventure greater than even the lowest tides, fortifying her shield, for reasons at the time that were merely dreams of an unknown future. This memory, of herself as a young optimistic and cautious barnacle, comforted her as Biff’s scaly body settled onto the deck below.

“This is an awfully big adventure we’ve started on,” whispered the barnacle.
But Biff didn’t answer. She was preoccupied, yet again, with the contemplation of death. And when the barnacle addressed one of the three thousand anemones on the wreck, they hardly responded, continuing instead to wave idly in the currents, subtly destroying the last remnants of what was once a very proud ship.

The quiet at that depth is deafening. Odessa had never experienced such oppressive silence and was overwhelmingly relieved when Biff finally spoke.
“It isn’t as eerie as I expected a shipwreck to be. Not like a graveyard at all.” Biff began seeming downright disappointed. “There are no bones. There are no remnants. There is no death at all.” Odessa listened intently to this, eager to distract her mind from the pressure threatening her soft internal body, and she noticed the distinct change in Biff’s tone when she continued to say- “This place is littered with Gone. It’s like death, only… afterward.”

The fish was correct. This shipwreck was almost unrecognizable as a vessel. The ship had long since split its bow from stern, the hull itself had peeled away becoming a reef for deep cold water animals. The anemones had so fully colonized the wreck that there was not a hard surface in sight. No decks for Biff to slide across, no sharp edges to impale her, despite her persistent scanning for them. Long before our travelers visit to the sight of such death men encased in metal suits, seeking breath from heavy iron diving bells, had stripped this wreck of her history. Gather up the jewels, the spoons, the chairs and cushions, even the numbers from the stateroom doors, and had carried them back to the world above. The Princess Sofia looked like the translucent shadow of a ship, bereft of any signs of previous life.

“What do you mean Gone?” Odessa asked, more in an effort to continue conversation than gain insight. “I mean that there is no carnage, there is no moment of death, no drama, no destruction! There is what happens when life has faded away. I guess … I always imagined that death was permanent. But it isn’t death that’s permanent. It’s only the Gone… the not being anymore, that is permanent. Death is short lived. “
“I see.”
“Odessa?”
“Yes Biff?”
“What do we have to live for?”
“For this.” Odessa replied “To fill the Gone.”

With that, in their moment of greatest sincerity, a moment when perhaps Biff might have been swayed to forsake this notion of death and find a reason to live, the moment, if there was ever to be such a moment, for Odessa and Biff to talk about Biff’s persistent obsession with mortality, they were crudely interrupted by a massive school of insanely sex driven sockeye salmon. They erupted like fifteen year old boys let out of school early and given free passes to a girlie film. They came flying through the anemone forest screaming with the stings as they demolished the gelatinous animals and yet hardly slowed down with the pain. These were fish on mission. That mission? Spawn till we die.

Odessa and Biff were hurled into the school bouncing back and forth between the salacious fish. They were smashed and beat, awkwardly rubbed and encircled, then ensnared by a group of rowdy males who demanded to know in almost choral unison “How far to fresh water, and how do we get your eggs?!” One lewd female even flipped Biff over once, twice, three times, trying to find some sign of gender, but knowing little of flounder anatomy came to the conclusion and loudly announced that “the weird shaped salmon has no genitals!” The salmon rolling and spasmodic immediately abandoned the petrified fish, and as quickly as the liquid orgy began it rushed on leaving our two travelers very very dazed.

Biff, her eyes bugging with violation, her heart screaming with embarrassment, and her body dying with jealousy, barely managed to whisper the words “I quit” before she began to violently sink toward the anemone bed below.

Odessa panicked. She began rapidly shouting to Biff not to do it, to find the reason to go on living, not to sacrifice them both to a painful end within the brutal arms of complacent anemones! Did she not understand, Odessa implored as they sank. Did she not see that they were destined for great things! That the were at least destined for things! The words rolled and rolled from her passionate barnacle mouth, but even the most articulate barnacle could not, and did not, suede this fish to forgo and almost certain attempt at suicide. With waving milky arms outstretched the anemones seemed to be gesturing the fish toward their tiny mouths. In the brief moment before contact Odessa, unable without the aid of Biff to release her firm grip on the scaly cheek, saw her life flash before her eyes. She saw her days as a polyp free floating through the sea. She recounted her life amongst barnacle society, and the friends and family she left behind. She revisited Biff being lurched over and over from water to air in her continued attempt at death, and she commemorated the moment, only days earlier when she and Biff began this adventure, and the moment she chose her name. When Biff made contact with the first anemone Odessa had made peace with life.

Biff’s body jerked and tensed with the stings. The anemone fingers grabbing her and injecting her with an unseen poison, and then… releasing her.
“You are not food.” The anemones stated calmly with their collective voice. “Why do you accost us?” Biff, determined, thrust herself once more toward floral death. Again the sting ran through her body and the anemones again spit her out. “Our food is small and still. You are large and fast. Until the sea has dispersed you, you shall not feed us. Kindly leave us be.” Biff failed to respond. Odessa, in a state of half-zen, waited patiently for her fate to be determined. They sat, hovering above the helm. Not speaking, not moving, barely breathing. Exhausted with the weight of it all.

“You are odd visitors to us” the voices said. “Such big opinions on such simple things. Life, death, fish, and men.” “Is it simple?” Biff asked. “Of course,” the anemones replied, “We sit, we eat, we live. When we are through we will die. We, like the passengers on the ship, will be forgotten.”