United We Love


I’m so nervous, my neck gills are quivering. My ship swims through a
bright pink nebula on its way to the rendezvous point. Thankfully,
everything at this point is on auto-pilot. I’m anxiously quivering so much
right now, I doubt it would be a smooth ride if I were behind the controls.
What am I going to say, anyway, before we rejoin? Do I have to say
anything or are we going right to the deed? This is the first time we’re
meeting in over seventy-five cycles. Both of us have gone on to have long,
happy lives. This should be a happy reunion, shouldn’t it?
Leaning back in my harness, I glide my hands through the thick gelatinous
atmosphere and hit a console button. A brief hissing sound, a panel swishes
open, sending out bubbles of air and my lunch, a squail larger than my
head, swims into the gel. Bless their little hearts, one of my adopted
children packed it away for my excursion. It bobs gracefully, pushing
itself through the gel with its tentacles. I playfully reach out for it,
hoping some food will calm my nerves. At the very least, the guiding lights
on the tips of each of its tentacles are a cathartic view.
Oh, my. A realization washes over my mind. What if she’s already eaten?
What happens if we converge and I have a full stomach? Then again, maybe
she hasn’t eating anything at all? We could be starving after the
convergence.
My lunch wraps a tentacle around one of my long fingers. Deep in
deliberation regarding my other half, I twirl it in the gel. It keeps
trying to gnaw at my hand, but my children took the time to remove the
ordinarily razor sharp teeth on its underbelly. The gooey gnawing on my
wrist is actually quite relaxing. I wonder if my children intended on that.
Perhaps it was at Angleica’s behest.
Such a long life I’ve had. Since the division after our birth, I grew up so
many systems away from her. We never contacted each other, as part of our
people’s culture (although there have been rare exceptions) and went about
our lives, separately. She’s so much like me, but yet, she could be
entirely different. Did she have the same, wonderful life that I’ve had?
Her short transcript last cycle was short but filled with such sadness.
To give myself some perspective before our reunion, I hit another button on
the ship’s console, my lunch still attempting to devour my hand, slowly
working up every scale on my arm. The display screen, currently displaying
the bright nebula, changes to her transcript:
Dearest Filletzep,
It is with heavy heart that I write this. I hope your life has been well.
My mate of twenty-five cycles has passed away. Trawlex’ reunion was not
scheduled for another ten cycles, but he swam in unknowingly sharana-filled
waters on the moon of Ladala and was consumed by them. Our children are
mourning, but it must be short, as they are deep in their advanced
didactics. I’m so very lonely, Filletzep. I now long for our convergence
and pray to the primordial that you are ready, as well.
All my heart,
Prawnell
It’s such as woe-filled, if short, tale. Our culture is built around the
convergence and yet, Trawlex’ half will now wither and die without him. I
spoke with my own mate, Angleica, and read of Prawnell’s transcript. We
held each other, mourning Trawlex and his other half somewhere lightyears
away. Compassionate from the day we met, Angleica allowed me to part for
the convergence. We met during our apprentice didactic years, soon fell in
love and adopted many divided children together who will someday have their
own convergences.
I gnaw on one of the squail’s tentacle and it shrieks in high-pitched
agony; poor creature. There is enough pain and grief today, so I slash its
underbelly with a claw and thus, end its anguish. Its fluids flow into the
gel, my gills will gladly inhale them.
Another button on my console is pressed and an image of my former mate,
Angleica, appears. I lovingly stroke the screen, remembering the feel of
each of her scales. I recall how we would spend quarter-cycles together,
frolicking in the oceans of Marinel Eight, caressing each others’ scales,
memorizing each and every one of them. I shall miss her dearly, but now she
is free to pursue her own convergence, something we all long for.
My ship finally breaks through the nebula, its powerful fins flapping
among the stars. My console blips and I close both the exquisite image of
Angleica alongside Prawnel’s transcript. Mere hundredth-parsecs away, a
small planet looms closer. Both of my hearts begin racing, one beat
following the other. The time is almost at hand.
Oh, what will she be like? What are her children like? Will she like my
children when we go to visit each of them at their didactic institutions?
So much of our lives will change following the convergence. Perhaps it’s
not too late. Perhaps Prawnel will understand? Perhaps I can still have a
few more cycles spent with wonderful Angleica, first?
No, Filletzep. That is not our way. The convergence should be a momentous
time, not one filled with self-doubt. We will meet, we will join and we
will travel and…perhaps meet another that has converged? That would be
nice. I’m so tense right now; I can’t imagine a life in convergence.
However, this is part of life. We are born, we are separate and we
converge. It is what gives us meaning.
My ship soars down into the planet’s green atmosphere; its flippers
stiffen so that it may glide across the surface. Legs protrude out
automatically, barely dipping into the ocean below to test the water.
Something attempts to snap its jaws at the legs, but my ship is far too
swift for that.
Almost there; oh, it’s been so long. Seventy-five cycles is a respectable
length, though. Some convergences occur after fifty, some as early as
twenty and some as late as nearly a hundred. By then, the two converging of
our people are nearly withered and the convergence is out of desperation.
My ship skips across the water, slowing down along the way. Its flippers
gallantly flap to maintain balance until the legs touch shallow water.
There is nothing living in water this shallow, fortunately, that could harm
Prawnell or me. The ship finally calms, sitting in the water, its webbed
mechanical feet planted firmly in the mud.
I hear a click on the side of my ship and a hatch opens up, spilling the
gelatinous substance out into the shallow water. The air is thick, but I’m
somewhat relieved to relax my gills and air sacks from inhaling the gel. It
may preserve my body for parsec-long travels, but it certainly is not
comfortable on my gills.
Undoing the clasp on my harness that I dangle from, I drop to the floor of
my ship. It’s still squishy as there is still some leftover gel to be
washed into the ocean. The squaill flops to the floor, dead. I climb out
the hatch of the ship and view this small planet with three moons. The
green sunset is beautiful; almost romantic. I’m glad that Prawnell chose
Cupidex for our convergence, a common location for many others of our kind.
In fact, I believe Angleica wishes to use Cupidex when she convergences
with her other half.
I take one more small bite from the squill and belly flop into the shallow
waters, trying my best to wash away as much of the gel as possible. Though
there’s no harm in a convergence covered in gel, but it can certainly make
the process messier.
There, on the shore of a small beach, is Prawnell. If not for her bright
yellow colour, I would think she were me. The first thing Angleica loved
about me was my dark red toned scales, lovingly caressing the yellow tips
of them. As I climb out of the water, shaking bothersome gel off the bottom
of my flippers, I notice Prawnell’s scale tips are dark red tones. Truly,
she looks magnificent.
Saying nothing, we embrace.
“I’ve missed you,” she says, lovingly.
“And I, you,” I reply. “My father always told me that after a division,
you will never feel complete until a convergence. Even in didactics, the
science of it was explained to me. The emotional drive to converge, and
yet, I didn’t understand. I felt I could go my whole life without it,
withering away beside Angleica.”
We break from the embrace and walk along the beach, flipper flat against
flipper.
“Your transcript, Prawnell,” I tell her. “Angleica saw it in my eyes. I
have always felt so empty, so unfulfilled…even while I taught didactics in
the Plativian Sector. And yet, the moment I read your transcript last
cycle, I felt your pain, your anguish, your love for Trawlex. It felt like
such a strong connection with him, almost converge-like.”
“And yours with Angleica was not?” she asks me, playfully kicking some
sand.
“Of course,” I reply. “How could it not? We are all halves of a whole,
looking for the other half. Mating is not a true whole, though.”
“No,” guilt-filled, she lowers her head.
“Oh,” I turn to her, lifting her head to gaze into her pupils. “I did not
know him, Prawnell, but I am sure that Trawlex would not want you to feel
guilty for his consumption. You should be happy that he continued on that
sharana’s life-cycle.”
“But his other half…” she gulps, her long neck gills fluttering.
“…will cope,” I finish her sentence. “Our society will not allow her to
live a life of lonely destitute. She will be well taken care of. Would you
like to seek her out, after our reunion?”
“Yes,” she says, a small smile growing on her face. “I’d like that.”
“Then,” I say, my two hearts racing in anticipation, “Shall we?”
“May we wait until morning? I wish to know more about your life, your mate
and your family. I was never able to meet our parental figures,” she says.
“Oh?” I feel I should be surprised, but I am not. After all, the females
after a division are sent away to foster parental units, such as Trawlex’
other half shall do. No member of our culture is left out of an equation.
As I have said to Prawnell myself, we are all halves of a whole.
All night long, we walk the beach, flipper-in-flipper. We share more in
common than I ever expected. She also met Trawlex in apprentice didactics,
on a field trip to a red sun system. She tells me how Trawlex was attracted
to the way her scale tips would match the sun’s radiant shines, glistening
against them. She is quite striking, I must admit, but my attraction to her
is not one of mating, but of what we two will look like, conjoined. I
enlighten her to how proud a father I was when my children were hatched,
growing up so fast in their primordial gel; how I hugged each of my
children tightly before and after their divisions and held Angleica tightly
when we sent our daughters away to systems all over the cosmos.
In turn, Prawnell tells me of her own children, some of whom were with
Trawlex when he was consumed. The boys tried to save him, but it was far
too late and too dangerous to risk their lives. When one of us risks our
life, we not only risk our own, but that of our other, divided half. To
lose one is to lose the other. Such is our ways.
We wake as the green sun comes over the horizon. I’m glad that we
spent the night getting to know each other this way, rather than waiting
until after the reunion. Besides, it takes a nano-cycle (essentially
overnight) for my ship to rejuvenate its gelatinous atmosphere, so the wait
would have been lonely.
“Thank you, Filletzep,” Prawnell declares. “I am glad you came so
soon…and to leave Angleica behind.”
“You may thank her, yourself,” I tell her. “She urged me to rejoin
with you.”
“Than, shall we?” she eagerly asks.
I nod. We embrace again, our arms wrapping tightly around each
other, flippers flat against our respective backs.
Our bodies soften. I begin to feel Prawnell washing into me and
myself, likewise. We stand on the edge of the beach, slowly moulding
together in a primordial gelatinous substance, reaching out slowly and into
each other. The process takes some time, however and it is appropriate to
converge away from all others, without interruptions.
It has always been the way of our people: when we are born, we
separate into twins, always one male and always one female. We gestate in a
primordial soup upon hatching and then divide into two. The two halves are
sent galaxies away, to rejoin and merge with one another only when the time
feels right for both. The converged then go on to mate with other
converged, having children of their own and the cycle continues again.
Prawnell and Filletzep are no more…at least alone. We merge
together, solidifying into our converged shape. A new name will be needed
for us…for me. It feels so odd to feel as one, but all of Prawnell’s and
Filletzep’s memories are now my own. The grief I felt for Trawlex’
consumption is combined with the love of our parents. The memories of their
warmth as they embraced Filletzep while reading an early didactic
transcript is mixed with the memory of Prawnell when her foster father
would read her the very same transcript...amazingly, we were taught the
same early didactics!
In honour of Prawnell’s lost mate, I decide on a proper title,
merging not the two of us, but the three of us: Prawltex.
I flex my thicker body, one twice the size of either Prawnell or
Filletzep. Prawnell’s grief and Filletzep’s nervousness for the meeting are
washed away when I look up at the green sunrise.
It’s a beautiful new cycle. The first thing I shall do is visit with
Filletzep’s mate and thank her for urging on my convergence. Next will be
Trawlex’ other half, if we can find her on the digital cortex. I’ll happily
offer her the role of foster mother to our daughters.
Perhaps Angleica and her half’s convergence will wish to mate?
Renewed and converged, I make my way towards Filletzep’s ship.
Hm, although…I think I shall swim in the shallow waters, away from
the dangers of consumption and get to know this newly converged body,
first. I press a button on the instrument panel on the side of my shi, by
the hatch. Soon, the ship will fill again with the gelatinous gel. It shall
be a long flight, but when I emerge to greet Angleica, it will be as a
newly converged being.
My digestive sack just grumbled. I realize that, in all of our
conversation last night, Filletzep forget to ask Prawnell a question:
whether she had eaten or not.
Evidently not.
I hope the squail will still be fresh after my swim.