Hanging from the rigging with the nonchalance of somebody who has spend a lifetime at sea, his focus was buried in the bow wake as dolphins played frivolously in the froth. Then, just outside his vision, he noticed flecks of white. Squinting harder to investigate further, it became apparent it was a huge swarm of moon jellyfish, a bloom uncharacteristically large this far from the coast, and at such high latitudes. It amused him to ponder their thoughts—or, given their lack of thoughts, more probably ponder their sensations—as they criss-crossed the oceanic expanse at the whims of wind and wave. The dolphins—and the ship—carved through the jellyfish with ease, every now one of the cetaceans casting one into the grey skies above, only for it to splat down several moments later; no doubt in a state of bewilderment. Or at least he speculated so.
Thirty years later.
Dangling his feet off the starboard side, he relished the experience of being drenched by the waves, as the catamaran pitched back and forth, criss-crossing the swell. Arms draped over the wire railing, he stared down into the dark depths—as he had done countless times before over decades past—and then he spotted it; the familiar specks of white. A metre or so below the surface they bobbed, hundreds or maybe thousands of moon jellyfish, another bloom; this time equatorial, not polar. Immediately, he was reunited with the train of thought from 30 years ago—what were they thinking, what was it like to float around aimlessly? And then a new one: were these the same individuals he had previously witnessed? He wasn’t sure what the life expectancy of a jellyfish was, though he recognised that as a human concern—surely these denizens, more be-ing than think-ing, were deeply involved and invested in the present, only the here-and-now. For all intents and porpoises, they lived forever, never pondering the past nor fretting the future. In their effortless bobbing on the ocean currents, they existed in a moment-to-moment cycle of birth and rebirth.
