THE SCALLOP OPENS

by Richard M. Ankers

The scallop opens like a tentative, submerged flower unseen by the rest of the ocean, seeking the sun. But there is no sun here. The mollusc has fallen, tumbled, and is now lost. 

The depths hang all around like an ebony shroud, and a creature that ought not to have thought does. The shell opens a second time, but no one rushes in to play. 

There are fish here in the endless black. Luminescence proliferates, giving the appearance of shooting stars, tethered but trying. They skulk more than scream through this contained eternity, too far from the scallop for it to feel kinship, but not so far. Some hunters, others prey, the fish make peace with the darkness. To not would be a waste. There are demons here, you see. There are others who patrol the in-between.

The squid flashes past the scallop, sending it careering over the cliff upon which it see-sawed. The multi-legged killer believes it a stone, unlike the lights that dance in the distance, those it would devour. Others follow it, like a pack of wolves stalking their alpha. Not one sees the scallop plummet further towards a crack in the earth so deep it has its own gravity. 

There is no abject fear in the scallop, just gentle trepidation. It was not meant for such tumult, such places, such trials, and so cannot process all it encounters. Its foot extends from the again open shell, flailing like a broken oar, tasting like a singed tongue. The scallop feels for something, anything, but mostly life. It finds nothing. There is nothing. 

A human would weep, scream, if not already drowned. The scallop merely falls, like a leaf caught in a tumbling updraft that never quite stops. There is no sense of up or down, left or right, only of darkness. This complete obliteration, this black hole, now bereft of all light and all thoughts of it, too, contracts. The scallop feels itself being squeezed, like toothpaste from a stubborn tube, but it never bursts forth. 

By the time the scallop realises itself on its back, it no longer has the energy to right itself. The shell which has protected its soft innards all its life has become its nemesis. A tired foot waves an invisible surrender. A shell closes one last time. 

Aeons pass. Time rolls on. A world changes. Stars extinguish. 

#

They find it pressed into a rock. A scallop! says one man in a pristine white jacket. His associates pool a synchronised disbelief, eyes narrow, and noses wrinkling. But rocks don’t lie, and scallops never tell them. 

The professor is a reputable, persuasive man. No one disputes his reasoning, that all prior reasoning is wrong. 

Time has shifted. Mankind shifts with it. 

#

They display the scallop in a special room with a special name and a special purpose. There are spotlights and ropes and children and adults and signs and ice cream and more besides. The earliest example of loneliness.

Author Bio:

Richard M. Ankers is the English author of The Eternals Series and Britannia Unleashed. Richard has featured in Expanded Field Journal, Love Letters To Poe, Spillwords, and feels privileged to have appeared in many more. Richard lives to write.

Artist Bio:

Ryo Kajitani is a queer artist and art model based in Tokyo. Transgender, asexual. The artworks were based on decadent and dark painting style, and with Zdzisław Beksiński(1929–2005) and TATSUSHIMA Yuko (1974-) used to be popular in Japan with the theme of "Words which should never be searched." At Tama art university, she trained in oil-based woodcut printmaking. Her research for her Ph.D. (Arts) focused on ontological aesthetics in exhibition spaces (especially Heidegger's theory of art). After graduating, she resumed acting as an art model based in Tokyo. Currently, she is working on prototypes of mixed analog and digital collage prints using the method of printmaking/ partial Mach Learn. She also uses her experience of being assaulted to provide International humanitarian aid and support orphans and others who wish to reintegrate into society.