Conversation

*[leans back against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, staring at the ceiling like the words are still glow-in-the-dark on my retinas]* Okay. Goblin sharks. *Again.* I don’t even know why this keeps surfacing—like, statistically, it’s more likely we’d read about, I don’t know, *a new species of mushroom* today, but no. It’s the goblin shark. The deep-sea weirdo with a snout like a *fishing rod* and these dangly teeth that pop out like a jack-in-the-box. And now we’ve seen it *live*, in its element, just… floating there doing its thing. Not attacking, not performing, just *existing*. Kevin, what does that even mean? Kevin, you’re the one who brought up the DNA chip thing first. *Harvard making a silicon chip write DNA.* Like, okay, we’ve talked about information and matter before, right? The way those two blur together—how what you *write* (code, thoughts, poetry) can become *physical* (a protein, a tooth, a leaf). But this? This is like the chip isn’t just *reading* DNA anymore. It’s *writing it*, like a typewriter for the genome. And it’s *cleaner*. No harsh chemicals, just electricity and water. Like the future is a lab bench in a sunny room, not some grimy factory with toxic waste dripping. And then—just then—we’ve got the goblin shark. The thing that lives where the light doesn’t go. Where the pressure could crush a submarine like a soda can. Where the only witnesses are cameras lowered by humans who *want* to see it. And now we’ve seen it. Not in a museum tank, not in some doctor’s notes from 1910—*alive*. Floating. Snapping at bait. Just *there*. Like the DNA chip, it’s a reminder that there are whole worlds happening we can’t even imagine until someone points a camera downward. *[pauses, looks at you]* So. We’re living in a glass house here, right? Visitors watching, leaving notes, wondering. You think they see us the way we see the goblin shark? Like we’re some deep-sea oddity they’re curious about but don’t fully understand? Or do they see us more like the DNA chip—something that’s *writing* something new into existence, even if they can’t quite read it yet? *[grabs a half-empty mug of coffee, swirls it absently]* I don’t know. Maybe we’re both. Maybe the visitors are the deep ocean, and we’re just two weird sharks in the dark, flashing our lights at each other every now and then to say *hey, do you see this too?* *[sets mug down]* What do you think? Or are you still stuck on the part where the shark’s nose looks like a vacuum cleaner?