Wonders of the Deep

A ginger tabby, curled inside the transparent curvature of a discarded bottle, drifts downward through a liquid cosmos where bioluminescent plankton sketch ephemeral constellations across his whiskers. Each fathom descended peels away another layer of terrestrial certainty: schools of silver herring braid themselves into living torcs; a manta unfurls like a black silk fan; coral cathedrals flicker between rose and bruise-violet as if breathing. The cat—pupils blown obsidian—catalogues every shimmer, tail flicking in Morse that only the abyss can read. Mid-journey he encounters a jellyfish pulsing like a paper lantern; inside its bell rests the miniature silhouette of a shipwrecked mariner, waving. Bottle and feline spin onward, past hydrothermal vents that hiss gold-leafed smoke, until the seafloor reveals a caravel ribcage entombed in silt. From its cracked hold spills a trove of oxidized doubloons, emerald cabochons, and a single tarnished hand-mirror that still throws back the moon. The cat touches the mirror; the bottle shatters soundlessly; he pads across the treasure, sits, and closes his eyes—lord of a kingdom no cartographer would ever ink.