"The Thing About Jellyfish" by Ali Benjamin, Parts 1–2

It doesn’t matter what kind: the blood-red Atolla with its flashing siren lights, the frilly flower hat variety, or the near-transparent moon jelly, Aurelia aurita.

It’s their pulse, the way they contract swiftly, then release.

He explained that if we placed our hands in the tank and held them perfectly still, tiny sharks and rays would graze against our palms like friendly house cats.

We’d stained our hands neon orange and blue, and now we wore the shirts like a psychedelic uniform.

Mine hung over my jeans like an old art smock.

If I made small talk, maybe my parents wouldn’t insist that I see the kind of doctor you can talk to, which is what I would be doing this afternoon, after today’s field trip.

I heard the refrigerator hum, a poink poink from the shower dripping, the ticking that comes from the old clock on the mantel whose time is always wrong unless I remember to wind it.

She looked grotesque, her face all crumpled like that.

The room was filled with tanks of jellyfish. I saw jellies whose tentacles were finer than hair; the aquarium must have projected lights into the tank, because the animals kept changing color.

Near the corner of the room a sign said AN INVISIBLE ENIGMA.

I knew what enigma meant—my mother often said I was one, especially when I dipped fried eggs in grape jelly or deliberately wore mismatched socks.

The text explained that the jar held something called an Irukandji jellyfish, whose venom is among the most dangerous in the world.

An Irukandji sting results in excruciating headache and body pain, vomiting, sweating, anxiety, dangerously fast heartbeat, brain hemorrhage, and fluid in the lungs.

An Irukandji sting results in excruciating headache and body pain, vomiting, sweating, anxiety, dangerously fast heartbeat, brain hemorrhage, and fluid in the lungs.

When stung, patients report a feeling of impending doom; some patients are so certain that death is imminent they beg physicians to kill them so they can “get it over with.”

When stung, patients report a feeling of impending doom; some patients are so certain that death is imminent they beg physicians to kill them so they can “get it over with.”

When stung, patients report a feeling of impending doom; some patients are so certain that death is imminent they beg physicians to kill them so they can “get it over with.”

Indeed, there are a number of documented deaths from Irukandji Syndrome, and it is unknown if Irukandji stings have been the true cause of deaths mistakenly attributed to other causes.

As a result, many researchers believe the Irukandji has migrated far beyond its native Australia.

They snaked around a giant ocean tank like a school of mottled, neon-colored fish.

I like your freckles, the way they look like constellations against your skin.

It was like one part of my brain insisted on defying another part of my brain.

Rocco squinted up at me from the asphalt.

“If I were a bird" he said, “I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns...”

She squatted down on the kitchen floor, opened up a cabinet, and began rummaging.

Through the windshield, I saw Rocco rumple Aaron’s hair.

A hypothesis is a tentative explanation, a proposed answer to the question that underlies your research.

A hypothesis is a tentative explanation, a proposed answer to the question that underlies your research.

A hypothesis is a tentative explanation, a proposed answer to the question that underlies your research.

A hypothesis is a tentative explanation, a proposed answer to the question that underlies your research.