It was in the summer, Tuesday after closing time, and the aquarium was near empty. The families had gone home, the groups were back in their hotels, the couples were flirting across a lovely meal somewhere else, and the fish nerds were learning some obscure facts alone in their rooms.
There was no one staring at any tank in awe - except one.
The tank stood big and blue, taking the entire wall in its crushing immensity, shedding a diffuse, aquatic light in the room. Enigmatic reflections danced on the walls and ceiling like fleeting windows, fragile in this plane of concrete existence. Everything was silence, as if the world only existed outside the realm of this room, a blurry image of the sky seen through the surface of a peculiar ocean.
In front of the tank sat two people holding hands.The peace was absolute and carried by their quiet breathing, not one split second out of sync with the other. It was as if they were one, and their bodies' blood was running through their linked hands in an endless loop of calm. They felt serene yet slightly electric, the contact of their skin producing static in their hearts. Although their souls were blind to anything else than each other, their eyes were swimming. In front of them stood the tank, and behind the glass danced pure beauty.
Swirling threads of blue and pink, purple filaments intertwined, floating, moving slowly as they had no need to hurry, and the light passed through them as they were water itself.
No word can truthfully describe the otherworldly grace of a jellyfish's ballet.The bodies shifted, and the smaller one rested her head on the other's shoulder. Their heart beat hiccuped slightly before they came back to a more relaxed rhythm. The last remnant of tension left them when the taller one gave into the contact and sighed, voice barely a whisper.
"Are we really doing this?"
Leti let the words roll into her mind like pebbles, polishing them with the waves of her thoughts, listening to their melody and the echos they had found inside her.
There was a lot of things they could be worrying about.There was coming out to their families, learning how to date, figuring out their future, looking for a college that would suit them both, going through the hassle of telling their friends, finding places where they could be themselves without fear... But they would have plenty of time to figure it all out later.
Each echo Umi's words found in her, Leti gave it to the jellyfish, and the jellyfish danced with it until it was nothing more than a tiny ripple at the surface of the tank.
Then Leti dived into a pair of deep, black eyes, and they were so close her voice kissed Umi's lips.
"Yeah. If you want to."
They closed the gap between them and their fingers were shaking, brushing each other's skin in a ballet of love, and their lips danced a duo no jellyfish could ever compete with.In this moment the ocean was theirs.
YOU ARE READING
A Jellyfish's Ballet
RomanceThe tank stood big and blue, taking the entire wall in its crushing immensity, shedding a diffuse, aquatic light in the room. In front of the tank sat two people holding hands. No word can truthfully describe the otherworldly grace of a jellyfish's...