Fall of the Jellarks
"The Future of Nature" short story exploring a human-nature relationship
“The Future of Nature” is an Earth Day community writing project for fiction writers to explore the human-nature relationship in a short story or poem. It was organized by
and and supported with brilliant advice from scientists and . The story you’re about to read is from this project. You can find all the stories as a special Disruption edition, with thanks to publisher .I cooked up…a short story from our new project CELESTIAL FEAST. Enjoy!
Gel-Memory AD-00000001
Our sick diving team has ventured up into the gelcean but I am the only one that can hear the jellark’s voice.
Help us
*Click-pop*
Promise us
*Ploop-pop*
Their cries remind me of my promise to you and your mama, of my Alzheimer's and of the depressing fact that I will leave you again but this time I won’t -*cough* - remember.
Warning! Liquid detected inside suit. Warning. Liquid detec- Suit disable warning. *cough*
It’s just tears and phlegm. We are approaching an injured jellark the size of our main spaceship. It’s pretty small but loud enough to vibrate us all to death with the whale-like noises it emits. We should stop here and wait until it dies before we extract anything.
Command center:
Remember your mission. We are here to study and extract. As the jellark dies it will transform into a tiny blob of tissue and become a polyp once again. We are here to study how it transforms and to extract that tissue. Your main mission is to extract. This is for the sake of our planet, for the possibility of immortality, for the Council of Eight, for - Suit mute command center.
Command center muted.
Fuck the council of eight. I’m here for immortality. We’re so close to achieving it. I’m here so I can save myself to go back home, wake up my family from cryosleep, and hug them before my mind eats itself. I *cough* promised you. Papa promised you.
My team stays at a safe distance from the tentacles of the Jellark. Those tentacles are similar to that of an extinct creature from our original home planet. The octopus. They have a decentralized CNS, meaning that unlike us, where control happens in the brain, they have control systems in each arm. Sort of like a mini brain in each limb ready to fire the galaxy’s deadliest toxins into whoever touches it.
One of the tentacles feebly reaches out towards me.
Help us
*Click-pop*
I reach out. My suit should protect me from its toxicity. My arm is vibrating from the Jellark’s final cries. I think my brain is too. I’m starting to remember your face. I miss you so much but I need to hear what it is saying before it’s too late. As the darkness feasts on my brain I keep my hand out and listen.
Help us
*Click-pop*
Cycle Broken
*cli-click*
Help us
*Click-pop*
Save Planet
*Popp-clik*
We touch and somehow exchange memories at the speed of light! I gasp in wonder and pain. The Jellark suddenly sinks through the bottom of the gelcean and falls thousands of miles down into the ocean below. I wonder if I’ll remember any of this. Darkness.
End Gel-Memory AD-00000001
Color edited Image by Zetong Li for Unsplash +
Sharing a recipe… for how I wrote this story
Wrote a few 1st sentences for different ideas. Examples:
As our planet faced extinction I was losing my memories but I still haven’t found what I was looking for.
I have explored the riskiest galaxies and I have swam through alien oceans to just remember you.
My diving team and I have ventured up into the gelcean.
Chose the 3rd line and incorporated some ideas from the other 2 lines to write a 1st draft that started out as an audio log.
The audio log draft didn’t read as an audio log and so revised it to cut out narration but it didn’t read well so I stopped midway.
I took a break to consider writing another story and worked on new worldbuilding ideas inspired by the live chat with the future of nature group.
Revised it again with some exciting new worldbuilding ideas and relabeled it as a gel-memory log.
Came up with the title this morning and it prompted me to cut a middle paragraph out and paste an edited version of it into the last paragraph of this story.
Eating up…other stories from "The Future of Nature"
Here’s the post where it all started and where you can also find many of the other writers! I’m looking forward to reading and sharing my favorite stories this week!
Buen Provecho!
-Chris
PS: Here’s our project announcement! Where you can read another story and see some of our concept art for the Jellarks!
So this is part of a larger story? I’m intrigued about the idea of searching for immortality on a far away planet and want to know how this works.
This story was one cool ride, thanks Chris. Love the jellyark, and the notes at the end about how you created this story were great. It’s always interesting to learn how other writers come up with their story ideas and sentence starters, thanks for sharing with us.