Planktos [πλαγκτός] is an adjective with varying translations depending on where you look. Among them: “drifter”, “wandering”,“errant”. One of these is an apt name for you. It’s hard to say what size, shape, or color you are; if your trophic level is photosynthetic, carnivorous, or recirculatory; whether you are a massive colonial organism or just a singular microscopic cell. But, there is one thing you know. There is no control. You move only where the push of the water takes you, and what is your life beyond that?
First, a drifter.
The word implies a slow ambiance. A kind of peace, even in the way it is said: drifter. Soft and gentle. Here, there is warm water, light in salinity, pulling you away from its cold, dense counterpart lying below. These currents cover you like a warm blanket. In a sleepy haze, you can let their natural movement take you wherever. You can float on for endless days, and the sun fills you with its bright-green nutrients: delicious. It's like lime juice-fresh squeezed and tart across your body. It’s hypnotizing.
You don’t know how long you’ve stayed like this. Two weeks and five months feel practically identical. It’s probably a good idea to try and actually plan something, find out when your lease expires, or look into an actual long-term job. But phosphorescence is just so nice; the panic fades away so much easier as long as you don’t stop. There is the faint realization that if you were to snap out of it, everything would come tumbling down. You’ll end up surrounded and lost, eaten, broken down by foreign digestive enzymes until no trace of you even remains, and your legacy lives on in nothing but oxygen and unfinished google docs.
You don’t know, maybe that’s just what it’s like in your early twenties.
Next, the wandering.
This one suggests a calling of sorts. But you can’t quite figure out where it’s coming from. Horizontally, you are still at the mercy of whatever direction the universe decides. But vertically, you start to get the feeling your routine is a little more stable. Up and down, up and down…the surface is not always a myth. You see it in the corner of your vision, meaning a change is coming.
You exist only in the twilight - that comfortable bubble of darkness that has provided safety all these years. The best thing about this twilight: it lets you feast. Gorge yourself on those smaller than you happily in the assurance of your own void. It doesn’t matter what you’re consuming, for all you know, it could be your lost children you’ve never met. After all, you were once a smaller being fighting for survival in the darkness. This food, as delectable and choice as it is, means what you once feared most is the reality for another.
You could still meet the same fate, there’s something bigger than you out there. And something bigger than that, and something bigger than what’s bigger than that. There’s an entirety of a vast unknown that could engulf everything you’ve ever known in a second.
To your right, there is a speck. Or a star. Or a snack. You can mosey on over and find out which.
Lastly, to be errant.
It’s harsh, both its consonants and implication. You are incorrect. You have strayed from the proper path, and are now bound to be forever traveling. Now, it is not solely the wafting of the waves or the cosmic wind that controls you, but the search for an adventure. As each new day rises, you pull shining armor over your parapodium, and hold your sweet circlet close to your aortic arch, treasuring the delicately interlaced turtles and true loves. As you stare at your one true possession, you let dreams fill your mind.
One day you will be honored and remembered for noble actions, not lost potential. You will be traveling no more and return to a beloved home. In a room hearth-lit and warm, you will rest your weary body in your favorite soft chair, long faded with use. As your eyes will grow heavy, your love will kneel down beside you, snickering at your eternal sleepiness. You will gently hold him, enfolded in your arms, and you will kiss him with all the kindness and courtesy you know. Upon his head will shining glint the interlaced doves. He will give you all that is his, and you will return all you have received to him. Your ocelli open, revealing the cold eternity of your surroundings. Oh, Sir Gawain, sweet little worm, today you must float on.
Upwards there is space. Downwards lies the oceans. Equal and opposite mysteries, each their own dark pressure cookers of the unknown. Specimens of the bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans have survived years of extraterrestrial exposure. So really, who can say what is possible? Are there anglerfish swimming among the stars? If we stare long enough at microscopic worms, will we see courtly love? To think that you know where you are, what you are, and where you are going is a lie. You just move where the water takes you.
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