Dr. Mollusk's Influence

It was New Year’s Eve 2029, and Rhonda Rafferty, aka Dr. Mollusk, was partying hard. As a marine biologist turned social media influencer, she’d been invited to several big New Year’s Eve parties in Los Angeles, and she’d picked three, the ones where the organizers had assured her there would be plenty of bivalves on the buffet. She had a wonderful time taking selfies and posting stories with clams, mussels, and even cockles, which the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association had been pushing her to spotlight since her voice in the oyster space had been so important. Tonight, she’d done a whole musical post with the cockles, and the the likes and comments had reached the hundreds immediately.

Oysters had been the most popular of the pelecypods, but the oyster craze of the mid-20s had been dampened as the prized bivalve became less and less safe to eat. In the early 21st century, as oyster lovers had transitioned from wild to farmed oysters, the old advice “only eat oysters in months with Rs in them” had become an amusing relic, often joked about but seldom followed. The farmed oysters were subject to water quality monitoring, inspections, audits, analyses, sanitation protocols, and more. It wasn’t romantic or picturesque, but it prevented the deadly Vibrio vulnificus bacterium from flourishing in warm weather, and turning the oysters into deadly poison.

For awhile. Until that summer came.

The first five people who died had eaten oysters that turned out to have been harvested in the wild. Dr. Mollusk posted a much-watched segment about it. “Wild oysters can be dangerous,” she said breathlessly into the camera, her beautifully made-up face looking serious but somehow captivating, with its impossibly red lips and impossibly long eyelashes. “That bad old Vibrio vulnificus only hangs out in wild oysters. So eat farm oysters and you’ll be fine. It’s safe, folks! Go ahead and have your oyster feast!” Before she posted it, she added a funny cartoon of dancing oysters bonking angry bacteria on their heads. The bivalve industry had loved it, posted it on their websites, and shared it widely.

But then a few weeks later, the bacterium showed up at a legit oyster farm, though one that turned out to have cut corners on their monitoring protocol. Rhonda emphasized that point in her post. Eleven people died that time.

Then another farm, then another and another. No deficits in safety protocols were found, and the water was the temperature and salinity it should have been. But by August, deaths had reached the hundreds, and illnesses the tens of thousands. The powers of Big Seafood were helpless to stop it. Scientists scrambled to figure out the cause — climate change? A chemical shift in the coastal waters? A flawed harvesting process? In the end, they were forced to the conclusion that it was something about the bacterium itself. Vibrio vulnificus had somehow become stronger, more persistent, more adaptable to different temperatures. 

A pair of scientists at U.C. San Diego noticed a series of new mutations that made the bacterium “learn” differently, but they weren’t sure what the ramifications were. They noticed few measurable differences, but they both had the feeling that this was simply a smarter bacterium. “It’s more intelligent than your typical undergraduate,” one joked to the other.

Marine biologists and bacteriologists everywhere were working on the problem. Every day, it seemed, someone noticed a new mutation, a change in behavior. Then the summer ended and the bacteria abruptly stopped reproducing, became passive, and in some places seemed to disappear entirely. Thorough inspections and analysis revealed no substantial danger for humans. It was September.

Scientists agreed that maybe making oysters a year-round delicacy had been a bad idea. One theory said that by disrupting the life cycle of the oysters, the life cycle of Vibrio vulnificus had also been disrupted, allowing it to evolve for greater toxicity and more adaptability. And by October some courageous consumers were eating oysters again, and nobody died or even got sick. By Christmas, it was well-understood that the old advice about when to eat oysters had been true, and they were definitely safe to eat in months with an R. 

So on that New Year’s Eve, Rhonda posted from the oyster bar at the third party she attended. She slurped down three large raw oysters and made yummy noises for her followers. Then she turned her camera to a rowdy group of oyster lovers as they feasted on the pelecypods, so artfully presented on their shells, resting on a bed of ice, each with little shavings of garlic, pepper, and lemon juice, or horseradish or salsa. At the end, she put her face close to the camera in her signature style, and intoned, “Delicious, right? Mmmmm.” She made a kissy face. “We still have to watch out for big, bad Vibrio vulnificus. But good news — only in the summer! Remember, my friends, eat oysters only in months with an R in them. She added a graphic showing DecembeR morphing into JanuaRy. “Enjoy the party!” She, and all the other oyster eaters in the video waved gleefully at the camera as the Dr. Mollusk logo overlayed the screen.

For Rhonda Rafferty, it had been a truly great New Year’s Eve. She’d made several posts which were garnering thousands of likes and comments. She had lots of other images ready to be turned into future content for her feeds. She felt she had cemented her place in the bivalve influencer community. And she’d eaten some really great seafood, washed down with the finest champagne.

Dropped off by a hired car just after midnight, she realized she was quite tipsy as she ascended the glass elevator to her top floor “view unit.” She thought she’d record one last good night to her followers, and maybe check out the comments on her earlier posts, before going to bed.

But when she pulled out he phone and clicked to he instagam page, something seemed wong. She couldn’t identify the poblem, and sat looking at the sceen, wondeing if she was just too dunk to see clealy. “D. Mollusk,” the page title said, and unde that “Honda Afferty.” That seemed wong, but she couldn’t puzzle it out. Was it “wong” she meant? Eveything felt a little uneal.

She switched to a news site. “Januay 1, 2030.” Was that ight? The headline was “Bas Packed With New Yea’s Eve Eveles.” Was that in English? She was too dunk. She went to bed.

In the moning, it was still Januay. That still seemed wong. She still couldn’t put he finge on the poblem. She went out fo coffee and had touble saying some of the wods. Othe people seemed to be speaking in a halting way too. Was it a collective hangove? What was amiss? Coffee in hand, she spent several minutes outside the building, looking at the sign, which ead “Alph’s Oastery,” tying to figue out what was diffeent. 

She looked at last night’s posts, and some didn’t make any sense. Thee must have been something wong with he phone. In one, he face close to the sceen, she said “Emembe, my fiends, eat oystes only in months with an !” Was she having a stoke? 

People can get used to anything, and it only took a few days for people to speak fluently again. The sense that something had happened, that something had disappeaed or been inseted, slowly eceded.

Whateve was missing didn’t came back, but life went on. People went to wok. Etail businesses flouished, though the signage seemed wong until people got used to it. Automobiles dove, aiplanes flew, and tains kept going down the aiload tacks. Childen in school ecited the 25 lettes of the alphabet as they leaned to ead and wite.

Oystes neve egained thei populaity. People ecalled the days when they’d let the aw bivalves slip down their thoats, deliciously. But it had simply become too dangeous. Oystes were famously poisonous, and no one wanted to isk it anymore. Some people vaguely ecalled that thee had been a time when thee was a signal, a marke, a way to know whethe it was safe to eat the now-disgaced bivalve. The oyste famers learned the advantages of gowing cockles, and Honda Afferty shifted he D. Mollusk focus to cockles, now maketed as “the cute clam.”

For the oystes, it was the end of the long nightmae of being captives of humans. Many of them difted away from the coasts and populated the lonely ocks that dot the ocean. At last, they were fee.

The two U.C. San Diego scientists continued to study the bacteia. A famous linguist fom U.C. Berkeley approached them with a theoy that the English language had somehow been alteed at the same time that oystes became inedible. It was contovesial, paticulaly since no one could quite figue out what the change had been or how it could have happened. Most of thei fellow academics scoffed, but this expanding team of scientists continued thei wok.

Thee are five nonillion bacteia in the Eath's ecosystem. They also continue thei wok.