Story of the Day

"Let's try something new," said Noreen.

We had been in a rut lately, doing the same thing night after night. It was not as though we were incapable of doing new things. We had just gotten a bit lazy since everything was so easy for us.

We all followed Noreen down to the shore. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was about to head down for the night. Noreen wasn't telling us what we were going to do so it was a sort of follow-the-leader. When we reached the beach she didn't stop but continued into the water. We had done that before so that wasn't the new thing. The water reached her chest and she continued in. When it reached her chin she was still walking and kept right on while the water rose over her nose and mouth and then over her eyes and head. Well, we had done this before also so we all kept walking as the water got deeper and deeper as we walked away from dry land and air I might add.

You see, I know your kind are not like us. You need air to breathe. your type can walk into the water the same way we did but you couldn't keep going without taking some air with you. It seems strange to us but we accept it.

As the water got deeper the light waned until there was none. This wasn't a problem for us since we use more of the spectrum to see than your kind. We just used some photons you can't see and kept walking. We walked and walked, miles and miles until the sea bottom started to rise again. As the floor rose the water got warmer until when we reached the top of the ridge there were columns of black and columns of white very hot water rising from holes in the earth.

We were at a spreading center where new seabed was being created from the mantel. It was time for Noreen to tell us what we were going to do.

"It is my idea that we watch the life cycle of the sea floor from creation to subduction," she said.

Since we had never done that before we sat down for some serious watching, and watched, and watched, ... Thursday evening,
March 7, 1996