Blobfish Cannot Speak

Blobfish cannot speak. They blink and wink to communicate. 

We humans think of Blobfish as the ugliest creatures on the planet, having dubbed them such in an internet contest years ago. They’re not quite so ugly in their native habitat: bobbing like jello salad in the muck at the bottom of the ocean. They live under extreme pressure. At those depths, they’re nearly as dishy as your ordinary fish. Nonetheless, when they’re accidentally hauled up by fishermen to our atmospheric pressure, they become the gelatinous ooze we all recognized in internet memes. That’s because they’re made of mush that’s made to mesh with the mashing forces of having thousands of feet of water overhead. Deep sea pressure: normal fish. Atmospheric pressure: syrup dumpling. If you hoist a blobfish up by its tail, the contents of its body will slide inside its skin towards its head and pool there like a fleshy water balloon. 

“I doubt he’ll make it,” the fisherman said. In his bright orange commercial waders, he was a fluorescent sun to Barker. Barker’s normally protruding eyes were squashed inward, and he was squinting, and now his head was swelling with his viscera as the man’s gloved hand dangled him by his tail over the boat’s handrail. 

“It’s the thought that counts,” the fisherman’s partner said with a shrug.

Barker’s face slapped the ocean like a dollop of mashed potatoes on an eager diner’s dinner plate. The sea’s surface slowly enveloped him. His organs seeped back into place. Like the slow-motion cascading innards of a lava lamp, he descended. He couldn’t believe it, but he might make it home. What a strange trip.

Blobfish cannot speak. They wink and blink blobfish morse code. It’s painstakingly slow, but they’re in no hurry. 

Blobfish have large mouths and muscular jaws – about the only muscle tone you’ll find on their bodies, but they don’t use their mouths to talk. That muscle isn’t for chewing either. They try to swallow their prey whole. They do, however, use that muscle to keep their mouths clamped shut. If they open their mouths before fully digesting their lunch, they’ll vomit. The deep sea’s intense pressure will steam roll whatever small crustaceans or decaying organic matter they choked down right back out their cakehole. 

…

Barker had not eaten for months. Even for a blobfish, that was a long time. For longer than that, he’d been selectively avoiding some of the debris that floated past his snout. He’d noticed that some of the blobfish he knew that were eating a lot of the brightly colored debris felt sicker and sicker, then turned up dead. 

Barker thought the pink shrimp with the pointy silver tail looked delicious. He couldn’t believe his good luck as it settled gently into the muck right in front of him. But it seemed to bite him back when he chomped it, and then he found himself ascending against his will. An invincible force tugged him upward. As he transcended through pelagic zones, his body changed shape like a stick of butter left out overnight. Barker wanted to scream, but blobfish don’t speak. He would have liked to bug his eyes out in horror, but they were slowly receding into his cartilaginous skull. Then Barker exited his world. He crossed through an enormous portal, and found himself in a flaming, suffocating hellscape. A ship sat atop a dazzling, shiny surface. Searing blues and whites floated above the surface. On board the ship, two beings, larger than some giant squid and apparently saturated with bioluminescent bacteria, were chatting casually. They held long sticks. Barker swung around in empty space. He listened in terror to the beings' conversation. 

“I think I caught more plastic,” the orange halation said. Barker was dangling before its white eyes.

“Insane how much is down there.” The other orange being gestured towards a pile of brightly colored plastic sludge on the ship’s deck. “Can we go deeper?” it asked its partner. 

“Not here. We’re already fishing the bottom.” 

Barker tried to breathe. 

“I’ll be damned. That is a fish. Not a plastic bag. Nasty looking.”

“Might as well eat a bag.”

“It’s probably chock full of plastic anyhow, seeing as how much we’ve hooked into already.” The orange being’s head turned from side to side. 

“Maybe I’ll throw ‘em back? I don’t think I could eat this one. Nice to know there’s something alive in there. Give ‘em a chance. That’s all we want anyhow.” 

The orange being’s appendages were gripping Barker. It forced a tentacle into his mouth and it flicked the pink shrimp from his stomach. “Nasty thing. Like a wet bag. Feels like his guts are on the outside too.”

“Nice of you to save ‘em.”

“Least I can do. Can’t seem to save ourselves.” The orange being held Barker by the tail. “I can feel the vice tightening.” It sounded upset. “There’s not a spot we’re not catching plastics on the hook or in the fish.”

“Yesterday’s catch was less saturated. No avoiding it now. Just have to try to eat less of it. Perhaps our bodies can tolerate more than the fishes’ bodies.”

“I doubt he’ll make it,” the fisherman said.

“It’s the thought that counts,” the fisherman’s partner said with a shrug.

…

Barker did make it. He slowly re homogenized as he sank back to his native depths. As his body took back its humble form, he waited for his eyes to heal. They felt better, but they still felt partially submerged into his skull. His field of vision felt diminished. 

Regardless of his eyes’ poor recovery, Barker was born again. He was enlightened. He was energized. He needed to tell everyone what he knew. He was a blobfish.

Blobfish cannot speak. They wink and blink to communicate. 

Barker went looking for family, for friends, for anyone. In the dark deeps and the murky bottoms, he made a noble, days-long effort to swim quickly. Finally, he encountered another blobfish. 

Barker blinked and winked a greeting and introduced himself. He waited for the response. For a blobfish conversation to go smoothly, both blobfish must exercise patience. They don’t want to miss a long blink or a short wink and misconstrue the message. They must listen with their eyes just as well as they express code with them. If they try to interrupt one another or talk over each other, they both end up terribly confused. 

“You’re hard to look at, mate,” the blobfish responded. “What happened to your face?” 

“That’s what I want to tell you,” Barker blinked out. 

“Better do it quick, mate. I’d rather not stare at you all day,” the blobfish said.

Barker’s mouth nearly fell open. How rude! He was trying to warn this blobfish from either of two potential catastrophes: eating deadly plastics or eating pink shrimp with pointy silver tails that suck you to another realm. 

“Well, it’s a long story, but I’ll do my best to be concise,” Barker started. 

“Oof. It’s just that, when you blink and wink, your eyes are popping in and out of your head. I simply can’t watch. I’m already constantly at risk of losing my lunch,” the blobfish said. It turned and left. Barker watched the blobfish drift away from him. It swallowed a piece of yellow plastic as it drifted out of sight. 

“Forget it,” Barker blinked and winked to himself. “It’s the thought that counts.”