Many say space is the final frontier, but they forget about the ocean. In the 1960s, two men traveled to the deepest part of the ocean, which is the Mariana Trench. Fifty years later and no one has gone that deep (Cousteau 193). Only five percent of the ocean has been explored, and so much of it is unknown to the world (Bardoe 208). One hundred seventy-five years ago scientists thought that the deeper the ocean got, the less sea creatures there were. Today with new technologies scientists have found that there is much more life than they previously thought in the deepest parts of the ocean.

A theory called the azoic hypothesis was created by a scientist named Edward Forbes in the 1840s regarding the amount of organisms that lived at the bottom of the ocean. To determine the number of organisms at the bottom of the ocean, he joined Thomas Graves on the HMS Beacon and dredged the Aegean Sea 100 times (Bardoe 202). As he got deeper samples he came up with less life. Many others believed his theory because this is what happens on land. If the extremely high and cold mountains kept life away, the cold dark ocean must do the same. “Forbes concluded that nothing at all lived below 1,600 feet (500 meters) deep” (Bardoe 203). Forbes recorded this data and then showed his findings to fellow scientists. Many believed Forbes because he was a very persuasive man (Deserts on the sea floor). However, there were some scientists who did not believe his theory and sought to disprove it.

After Forbes came up with this theory, sea stars and clams have been hauled up from even deeper depths than 1,600 feet. Much evidence was found against the azoic hypothesis during the next century. John Ross who was captain over HMS Erebus and HMS Terror and collected samples of worms and sea stars from 1,800 feet deep. Despite this evidence, scientists overlooked it because John Ross was not considered reliable and scientists didn’t believe him when he showed them his findings (The Azoic Hypothesis). In addition, corals were found at 2,500 feet, starfish and oysters were found at 7,500 feet, and 4,700 new species were found at 16,000 feet. Scientists thought that since photosynthesis wasn't possible at such depths that life would subsist on marine snow (Bardoe 203). Forbes was a very influential man and many believed his theory despite the contradicting evidence. It wasn’t until the 1970s that views on the matter started to change.

In 1977 a team of researchers got into a mini-sub called Alvin and went to the bottom of the ocean to find life. They found a hydrothermal vent coming out of the ocean floor with an ecosystem living around it. This discovery was extraordinary because they found chemosynthetic bacteria which use chemicals to create energy. Then after this discovery they found that life on the bottom of the ocean was thriving and not surviving off of just marine snow, but off of chemosynthetic bacteria (Bardoe 203). The life they found included spider crabs, mussels, worms, and a wide variety of new sea creatures. After a lot of hard work and time, scientists retrieved enough evidence to convince everyone that life at the bottom of the ocean was plentiful.

Less than two centuries ago Edward Forbes created the azoic hypothesis, and then after much contradicting to his theory scientists learned that life was abundant deep in the ocean. Philippe Cousteau states, “You may think I’m doing my grandfather Jacques Yves- Cousteau and my father Philippe a disservice when I say we’ve only dipped our toes in the water when it comes to ocean exploration” (194). Cousteau is explaining that we have barely gotten our hands dirty exploring the ocean and that we need to pick up the pace. So little of the ocean has been explored and so the more discoveries we make about the ocean the more our knowledge of it will change.

Words Cited

Anderson, Rice. “Deserts on the sea floor: Edward Forbes and his azoic hypothesis for a

lifeless deep ocean.” National Center for Biotechnology Information. 13 November 2006.

Web.

Bardoe, Cheryl. “Living in the Dark.” California Collections 2017: 201-208. Print.

Benningfield, Damond. “Azoic Theory.” Science and the Sea. 29 September 2017. Web.

Cousteau, Philippe. “Why Exploring the Ocean is Mankind's Next Giant Leap.”

California Collections 2017: 193-196. Print.

“Edward Forbes.” HMS Challenger Project. 24 September 2014. Web.

“Edward Forbes.” Wikipedia. 15 January 2018. Web.

White, Isobel. “The Azoic Hypothesis.” Extreme Marine. 11 September 2017. Web.

ow

The throb in my head wakes me first. When my hand reaches up to rub my aching skull, it touches a damp cloth folded neatly into thirds. Stupidly I remove it and light pours in, causing me to wince at my foolishness.

I lie in a bed barely long enough to hold my toes, which curl out before the edge of the wood, bare and naked like my chest. As I roll over I see my shoes sitting neatly near a small door which I cannot recall ever walking through. My pants are still on, but that is all. My shirt lies stretched out in the sunlight on a chair by the window, and it looks far cleaner than how I feel right now. Grunting, I lurch upright and press the cloth back to my head, willing the pain to go away.

Soft footsteps and the sound of voices waft through the thin walls of the small house I find myself in. I can barely make out what’s being said when suddenly the door opens and a young man - at least five years younger than me, and unable to legally put himself in harm’s way as I have - enters and stares at me. At first he seems nervous, but then quickly he points to my head. “You - your head okay?”

I would nod but it would betray me. "Yes." I say, holding my head absolutely still. The coolness of the cloth comforts me.

He nods, and then leans back out of the doorway "Abuela! Esta despierto!" In the background a voice yells back at him, but I can't make it out. My host leans back in. "You hungry?"

Food seems to be the last thing I need. "Thirsty, maybe. Can I have some water or juice?"

"Un momento." The boy dashes off again, leaving the door swinging open. I decide I should probably put my shirt back on, since nobody needs to be blinded by my paleness this early in the day. Slowly, I stand up and stagger over to the chair by the window. The view outside amazes me - the sun bursts through a short, wide-branched tree that blows in the soft breeze outside. The adobe walls surrounding me feel warmed by its touch and small birds chirp in cacophonic symphony outside. I wonder briefly if I have died and gone to Mexico. Then I wonder what I did to deserve it - definitely not whatever I was doing last night. That would have landed me elsewhere.

My host returns holding a glass filled with a bright liquid that doesn't resemble O.J. "Aguas frescas." He explains. I take it with a slight bow for thanks and start to down it in one gulp before he taps me on the shoulder and holds up two white pills. "For your head."

"Muchas, muchas gracias," I manage in my horrifically flat American accent. God, Spanish sounds awful when I speak it. I'm hoping intent matters more than intonation. Downing the pills and the rest of the glass, I wipe my mouth and tug at my shirt. "This too, gracias."

Shrugging, he says, "Abuela cleans. You hungry now?"

Tired, I relent. "Okay."

He leads me out of the room into an even smaller hallway, padding barefoot down a worn wooden floor that gleams with sweat and polish despite its years. As we reach a small kitchen my nose fills with an overwhelming wash of scents moving through the churning blades of an ancient ceiling fan. Inside the kitchen the smallest woman I've ever seen, with a braid as long as she is tall, stands over an electric hotpot. She stirs up a dozen spices and aches within my abused gut. When she spies us, she points at a plastic-covered table and two wobbly chairs, silently commanding us to sit.

I follow my new friend and we settle in across from each other, separated by a stack of what appear to be fresh tortillas that convince me I must be dead. Nothing smells this heavenly on earth. Thinking it rude to just munch plain tortillas I wait patiently, my hunger now building as I listen to my hosts talk in Spanish. I cannot understand, so I zone out until the frying pan comes down in front of me with a heavy thud.

"Eat." the old woman orders. She picks up a plate and piles it high with scrambled eggs, imbued with diced tomatoes, onions, and chili. A bowl of beans appears seemingly from nowhere and she adds it to the side, sliding a tortilla on top.

I bow my head again, graciously I hope, and say, "Muchas gracias."

Grunting, she replies, "Eat." I soon realize this is the only English word she knows, or rather has any use for.

I dig in and the glorious flavors bring me back to life. The fluffy eggs melt on my tonuge as the chili kicks me in the teeth. I douse the heat with the blessed, sweet corn tortilla that pulls apart like a warm blanket in my mouth. My involuntary groan draws a grin from my young friend, who starts heaping even bigger servings onto his own plate. He chatters away at his abuela, who mutters and returns to a wash basin on the small counter filled with dishes. She adds the frying pan to the pile and makes sure the hotpot is turned off before returning to the soapy water.

I wolf down my food and hold up a hand. "I can wash." I offer, my mouth barely done chewing my last bite. "As a thank you."

"Eat!" Abuela orders again. My friend shrugs and smiles, pointing at the food still sitting on the table. It would take me hours to finish it, hours I would gladly spend in this kitchen. As I obey, the conversation falls to the soft chinks of plates and cups in the background and the quiet chewing between the two of us.

Finally, I pipe up, "How did I get here last night?"

Listening carefully, my friend swallows his bite. "You fell asleep at bus station. The men there, they rob you. Take your money. My father drives the bus, he finds you and brings you home. Here."

"Where are we?"

"Tecate."

I stare blankly. I remember drinking Tecate, but I've never seen it on a map. "How far from America?"

"Ten minutes, short time."

With a sigh of relief, I relax in my chair. My mind scrambles to piece the memories together. I remember the bar on the border town, where my friends took me for my "yay I quit my job" celebration. They had laughed and encouraged me to drink up on their tab, since I wouldn't be able to afford booze much longer. Then they'd slowly left one-by-one, and I must have decided to ride the bus home. I just ended up at the wrong kind of bus station.

"Is your father home? I want to thank him." I say, aware that the situation could have gone so much worse than it had. I could have lost far more than my money. Organs, for instance. Even as a man, there are things worse than identity theft or credit card fraud.

"He sleeps now, works at night. He will take you back later." My friend reassures me, and I have no idea what I've done to earn his good graces. "Abuela feeds you now, stay and eat."

Abuela appears at my shoulder and refills my glass then my plate, heaping it back to a second stomach's worth of food. "Eat, eat!" she repeats and I try to comply, taking a quick drink to cleanse my pallet.

"Thank you, and your family, so much." I say again between mouthfuls. I don't know how else to convey my gratitude, so poor rushed English between bites is all I manage. "I am very sorry you had to help me."

The boy laughs and shakes his head. "Father says every man will be stupid one day. We help you today, someone help us when we are stupid." Another spoonful of food disappears between his smiling lips.

For a brief moment, I imagine what would happen had someone like my young friend gotten drunk and passed out at a bus stop in my town. Would I have taken him home? I imagine my small, empty apartment and look up at the warmth of this abuela's kitchen. Would I have cooked him breakfast, and let him sleep in my bed? Would I have washed his clothes, and offered him a ride home?

Even if I had, my small apartment felt ridiculously empty and barren compared to this home. I had no abuela. My grandmother lived in Texas in a retirement center, with her arthritis and her bridge club. My parents had moved out as soon as they were able, leaving her to age alone until my grandfather died and she eventually gave in to assisted living. She would never have cooked a warm meal for a stranger I dragged home, she would have called the police. She wouldn't have known even a single word of Spanish to encourage that stranger to eat, either. Heck, she probably would have protested having to learn Spanish in the first place. I might have tried to persuade her when I was still seven, and her favorite grandson. But I've avoided her for so long now I'm lucky she still remembers who I am when I call twice a year.

As if sensing my inner turmoil, Abuela cuffs my shoulder and points to my unfinished plate. "Eat." Just one word. Maybe it's all she really does need, after all.

I finish every bite on my plate, just to make her proud.

It was church bells that roused me when nothing else could have. A cacophony of potted bronze. Clamorous machines engineered through the centuries to do naught but direct the highest possible volume of sound downward, down to where the sinners live, work and sleep, and to wake those sinners UP. The bells did their work on this day. One hundred bells clamoring for notice atop one hundred churches. Bells hung by a pious people in a pious city, people who would surely one day, if there is a god, walk that golden road to meet Him. The bells were a not so subtle reminder that today was Sunday, the Lord’s Day, the day and time to wake, to stop working, and to accept the invitation to God’s house. It was the day set aside from living so that one might prepare his soul for dying. My soul had little preparation, but was ready yet... almost eager.

The pew was hard. It was of a dark wood, mahogany maybe, polished smooth by two centuries of cotton and wool rising and sitting only to rise again to sit and rise forever. Those polishing the pews spent their lives in this town, listening to these bells, worshipping the Catholic God whom they had inherited down from Ferdinand and Isabella, worshipping from these polished pews, or from ones like them, amongst this congregation, or ones like it, congregations that knew their individual parts and protected them, and loved them. Congregations that are ever changing as parts die and parts are born, but congregations that are somehow still always the same.

Upon the pew, beside my head, is a pile of bloody vomit, bile mostly, as food is a waste, serving only to neutralize that which really matters. The vomit emits a familiar smell of disgust that clings to me forever like spray paint clings to a freight car, tacky, tasteless and rude to the senses. Dried blood cakes my face and shirt. My own blood. Blood freed from me, perhaps, by a member of this very congregation, by one of it‘s parts. Blood that might be washed from me with tender fingers by that same man’s mother, or sister, but not his wife. A man who would do such as this to another man would not have a wife, not for long, not even a Catholic one. Of course, I could not recall the beating, and it may have been deserved. I am not usually a nice drunk, as the alcohol only softens angry nerves for a short while before it pokes them with its needles.

My groin is also sticky wet. Like the rest of me, it too reeks repulsively, my pants clinging coldly to the tingling skin of my inner thighs. My breathing is jagged, my chest heaving, but I can smell them through the fear... the urine, the vomit, and the church. The church has its own scent, a scent of timelessness. Its odor mixes unnaturally with mine in the warm, dusty air. The dust wafts in streams of brightly colored sunlight above me, blue dust, red dust, and gold as it floats across stained glass prisms. The dust swirls ’round me like the smells and the ringing bells, everything swirling, everything sickening.

I try to rise, but cannot. I try my body, my arms, and my legs. The efforts trigger one last spasm. The bile heaves from below, filling my mouth and nostrils. With an instinctive sense of preservation my body coughs, willing the nastiness away, but the coughing only opens the trachea, allowing it to suck the acidic bile inside, where it cannot be. Thus begins the chain reaction of cough, inhale bile, cough and inhale again...

The doors open, letting the townsfolk in. They take pause at the surprise waiting upon the pew. They look with horror at the drowning man, even as he looks at them through his own terror filled eyes. He sees them, a dark-haired, dark-eyed and dark-skinned people, for all the world like impoverished angels. They whisper in a tongue of angels. They whisper prayers for me, a stranger, the women clinging to their rosaries, the men clasping gnarled hands.

The darkness creeps in. The angels fade. The Golden Road lays there before me. At its end waits an unknown God, a God who dose not know my voice, as it is a voice that has never known prayer. It is time now to walk that road. It is time now to test His mercy.

It wasn’t the feral cats or the stink of garbage that woke me up. It wasn’t even the grubby kids poking me and whispering to each other. It was the wind blowing pollen and flower petals over my face. I sat up so quickly the kids nearly fell over. They start speaking in Spanish so fast I can only catch every other word. I grunt and get to my feet, then immediately regret it as I nearly pass out from the head rush.

The kids scamper in front of me, still speaking so rapidly I can’t understand.

“Hey! Stop, stop it. Where am I?” They seem to understand, so I guess I speak Spanish. The kids look at me a little funny then one says,

“In la Ciudad de Mexico.” That takes me a few seconds to process. The kids go back to chattering, pulling at my hand trying to get my attention. I ignore them and stumble towards the street. I look down and realize one of my shoes is gone. I emerge onto the street, which is crowded with market stalls, bikes, vespas, mothers shouting at their children, men gossiping and calling out their wares, women laughing.

The street is covered in flower petals, golden flower petals. They’re being blown all around the street, scattering and swirling. I shakily begin walking down the street. The wind blows my hair into my face. I reach up and feel it, it’s thick and dark. It suddenly occurs to me, I have no idea what I look like. This should probably scare me more than it does. I move to a stall and look in the reflection of a shiny pot.

I certainly look like I belong here; dark eyes, tan skin, long dark hair that if it wasn’t so dirty would be rather pretty. I’m wearing a white linen dress, which is muddy thanks to the alleyway.

But...how did I…

I rack my brains, Who am I?

The name Elena comes to mind. After a few seconds I’m sure it’s mine. If I have any other names, they aren’t presenting themselves. Next, I try to recall where I was before.

Nothing.

More flower petals smack against my face as I move down the street, the two kids still following at a distance. No one pays me much attention. Everywhere I look there are flowers, burned out candles in windows, colorful banners strung everywhere. I pause before a threshold and see a table made into an altar, covered in a linen cloth laden with fruit, cakes, flowers, a few candles still guttering. At the top, there are several black and white photographs.

An ofrenda.

It seems so familiar and therefore comforting.

Behind me, a few streets down, I hear the chiming of church bells. That sound...yes I remember that sound. I must live near here. Or something. I turn the corner and move towards the sound.

The church is nothing spectacular, just a red stone building two stories high with a single stained glass window I somehow know depicts the last supper. I start towards the heavy wooden doors, but something else catches my attention. The cemetery.

I go through the gate and I suddenly know exactly what day it is. November 3, the day after Dia de los Muertos. All the graves are covered in golden flowers, slightly wilted. The food offerings are just beginning to attract flies. A few reverents still kneel by the grave markers, praying for their ancestors. Monarch butterflies flit through the air.

My feet seem to move without my direction. I pass by grave after grave until I stop a few yards from a woman kneeling by a mound of earth covered in marigolds, the remains of ten candles scattered around it. The woman is older, her graying hair braided tightly, holding her rosary between folded hands, lips murmuring a prayer.

I see over her shoulder, at the head of the grave, a framed picture.

A framed picture of me.

I feel my heart skip several beats, and now I hear the words of the woman.

“Bless my darling Elena, may she fly on the wings of the butterfly.”

Heart fluttering in my chest, I look at the picture again. A monarch lands on my shoulder, and another on my hand. Part of me wants her to turn around, the rest of me is terrified. It was impossible. Finally, I say, timidly,

“Mama?”

The woman turns, the beads fall from her hands. We stare at one another, she raises her hand to her mouth, trembling.

The butterflies flap their wings and float away, dancing with the drifting marigolds in the breeze.

there is pandora’s box inside of me that is labeled in sloppy painted letters

to match what it contains

it is an empty chest cavity

that rattles when i breathe

i am euphoria personified

I can’t believe

I still miss you

All these months after

You left

I’m over

A thousand miles away now

Yet you’re still

Infiltrating my thoughts

You’re not welcome here anymore

Yet still you persist

It’s funny how I want your memory gone

But you still here

I was told that I would forget

That I would move on and live happily ever after

But I still dream of you

Both during the day and at night

I had to let go

A bit of my sanity

Otherwise I would have been driven insane

You still run through my veins-

More of you than I have platelets.

Maybe that’s why i keep on bleeding

Dark brown curls

bouncing

on her shoulders

she ties them back

with a ribbon

remember

when she was

just a little thing

as wild as those curls

who believed me

when i said

baby you're beautiful

now she paints

a different picture

of herself

for anyone save me

and goes into

hiding behind

dark brown curls

remember

when she'd hold my hand

as we crossed the street

write me love notes

and i'd sing her to sleep

now she's embarassed

to be seen with me

it hurts to think

one day she'll leave

to make her mark

on the world

i'll stay alone

remember

dark brown curls

my sweet baby girl's.