WORN SHELLS: Metamorphosis Without End

	In the dizzying dance of my delicate days,
	a trembling trochophore tossed in tidal haze,
	I pirouetted, pale, in saline spray,
	a microscopic mote in the ocean's maze.

	Through briny blue my pediveliger body bore,
	darting past devouring mouths that gaped and tore,
	past swaying stalks and stinging flagellum's lash,
	till finally I fastened to the ocean's floor.

	There grew I grand—a citadel carved in calcite spine,
	a cathedral catching currents in the cradling brine,
	a city of cilia in cerulean deep,
	while hungry hunters flitted around my hardened shrine.

	Then came... a crimson tide that choked the sea,
	and starving, gasping, I surrendered silently.
	My sanctuary split by scuttling, snapping claws—
	crabs that feasted greedily on my oxygen-starved corpse.

	After savage storms that screamed and tore the shore,
	I lay—a lonesome shell in a hollow, rattling roar.
	Rolled and battered in the roiling, foaming surge,
	my body broke and blended with the sand once more.

	Now still I shift, still seamlessly I blend—
	metamorphosis without end,
	without end.


SITUATION: Four friends stand near a old pier, the evening sea breathing softly beneath them. 
A lone gull cries somewhere overhead. The horizon smolders orange, ebbing into deep violet, 
as the sun sinks into the undulating waves.

Andrei: (thoughtfully scratching his head while his eyes trace the dying sun) Eventually, 
        won't we become like worn shells? Over time, won't we curiously hollowed out?

Jules:  (nodding absently, his gaze lost in the shimmering waters and voice tinged with melancholy)
        Quelle pensée morose…  We’re just echoes of what survives the tide, like memories 
        washed ashore. (gesturing then toward the horizon with cool nonchalance)

Elijah: (leaning back on his palms and grinning) Sorry, my universal translator’s isn't 
        working well. You mentioned a gloomy thought, right?  Why so fatalistic? (chuckling 
        faintly as the waves briefly subside and the wind subsides)

Jules:  (laughing softly, eyes twinkling with mischief) Oui, c’est vrai. But gloom has its 
        charms—don’t you think? It makes the fleeting light a little sharper when it returns.

Andrei: (smiling at the waves with a tinge of bittersweetness) And we Russians understand 
        gloom: it's a wintry friend. Maybe what we leave behind aren’t merely empty shells, 
        but former selves. This is certain: soon we will amount to dust, phosphorus, and calcite.

POSTLOG: A pregnant silence lingered between the group, broken only by the shifting waves against the pier.
The gull circled back, a streak of crimson against the deepening dusk. The group dispersed in the night.

 
=====================================================================================
from _Let the waters be my witness: Messages about our watery world_ by T Newfields
SUMMARY: A contemplation on cyclic existence and transformation as some friends reflect on mortality.
KEYWORDS: seashell resonances, spiraling chambers, cyclical existence, metamorphoses, 
          trochophores, marine life cycles, mollusks, oceanic transformations, 
          tidal existence, ecological cycles, impermanence

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955)
Begun: 2000 in Tokyo, Japan  / Finished: 2026 in Shizuoka, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

Disclosure: This piece was partially generated using AI tools for styling and ideation; 
            human editing was then applied.

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