There’s a dark so deep beneath the sea the creatures beget their ownlight. This feat, this fact of adaptation, I could say, is beautiful
though the creatures are hideous. Lanternfish. Hatchetfish. Viperfish.I, not unlike them, forfeited beauty to glimpse the world hidden
by eternal darkness. I subsisted on falling matter, unawarefrom where or why matter fell, and on weaker creatures beguiled
by my luminosity. My hideous face opening, suddenly, to take theminto a darkness darker and more eternal than this underworld
underwater. I swam and swam toward nowhere and nothing.I, after so much isolation, so much indifference, kept going
even if going meant only waiting, hovering in place. So far below, so faraway from the rest of life, the terrestrial made possible by and thereby
dependent upon light, I did what I had to do. I…
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The New Yorker (Digital) - 1 Issue, June 28, 2021