Love is the reason for many a wonderful and horrible thing. Love was the reason I lived, there in the Deep, in the warm embrace of the ocean where Mother Earth’s loins spread and gave birth to the world. Her soul was my soul. Love is the reason she came to me in the darkness, that brave sea maiden. I remember the taste of her bravery, the euphoric sweetness of her fear. It came to me on wisps of current past the scattered glows of the predators. The other predators. Her chest contracted and I felt the sound waves cross the water, heard them with an organ so long unused I had thought it dead. Help me, she said. I love him. The white stalks of the bloodworms curled about her tail. We had a common purpose, the worms and I. We were both barnacles seeking the same fix, clinging desperately to the soul of the world. Their crimson tips brushed her stomach, her breasts.
