A Fluid Strangely, Chapter 4

With her neoprene suit, her goggles and snorkel, she slowly wades into the black ocean fluid and then lets herself fall forward until she floats well in the water, having her head partly under the surface with the snorkel sticking out. It looks as natural as on earth’s oceans, but here, the black water fully swallows the body without translucent hints. It is like a dark sauce eating up anything that dives into it.

After a few minutes, the captain comes back and Nigel is anxious to hear about her experience. Reassuringly, she offers him his snorkel,

“Now, you try. Don’t feel irritated by the local plants inside, they are quite color-flashy.”

Hesitantly, he takes his equipment, “Okay, thanks.”

He proceeds like the captain, and even though his heart is pounding like crazy as he sinks into the heavy liquid, he knows it is a minor thing to do so. Eventually, he feels the liquid nipping at his hair. He opens his eyes under the goggles and is surprised.

Darn! There are crazy colors all around!

There is not that blackness as expected. Sure, the background of the scenery remains in these dark waters, but in front of him he sees a strange kind of plants growing and unfolding at high speed, expanding in i-rotational patterns with crazy colors. While some are expanding, others contract again. A constant movement. A mathematical one.

He gasps at the perfection of geometry these beings own. They are like Mandelbrot procedures, recalculating themselves now and then.

Gradually, one thought forces itself into his mind.

They are talking. It’s not a coincidence.

After a few minutes, he gives himself a push to return to the shore. He could have remained for hours, but he knows that the captain and her team want a statement made by him. And indeed, a statement he needs to make.

With black water dripping from his body, he wades towards her, pulling his goggles and snorkel off,

“It’s a language!”

With a big smile she returns,

“I hoped you would say so.”