Fathoms: The World in the Whale

by Rebecca Giggs

A dead whale slips below the depth where epipelagic foragers can feed from it. The whale’s mushy body decelerates as it drops, and, where pressure compounds, putrefying gases build up in its softening tissues. It drifts past fish that no longer look like anything we might call fish but resemble instead bottled fireworks, reticulated rigging, and musical instruments turned inside out. The whale enters the abyssopelagic zone. No light has ever shone here, for so long as the world has had water. Entering permanent darkness, the whale passes beyond the range of diurnal time. Purblind hagfish slink: jawless, pale as the liberated internal organs of other animals. Jellyfish tie themselves into knots. The only sound is the scrunch of unseen brittle stars, eating one another alive. Slowly. It is very cold. Hell’s gelid analogue on Earth. The hagfish rise to meet the carcass and tunnel in, lathering the passages they make with mucus. They absorb nutrients right through their skin. The whale body reaches a point where the buoyancy of its meat and organs is only tethered by the force of its falling bones. Methane is released in minuscule bubbles. The ballooning mass scatters skin and sodden flesh below it, upon which grows a carpet of white worms waving upward, like grass on its grave. Then, sometimes, the entire whale skeleton will suddenly burst through the cloud of its carcass.