15144. “It’s a wonder they can sit down at all, and when they walk, nothing touches their legs under the billowing skirts, except their shifts and stockings. They are like swans, drifting along on unseen feet; or else like the jellyfish in the waters of the rocky harbour near our house, when I was little, before I ever made the long sad journey across the ocean. They were bell-shaped and ruffled, gracefully waving and lovely under the sea; but if they washed up on the beach and dried out in the sun there was nothing left of them. And that is what the ladies are like: mostly water.” ― Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace
15143. “A jellyfish, if you watch it long enough, begins to look like a heart beating. It doesn’t matter what kind: the blooded Atolla with its flashing siren lights, the frilly flower hat variety, or the near-transparent moon jelly, Aurelia aurita. It’s their pulse, the way they contract swiftly, than release. Like a ghost heart– a heart you can see right through, right into some other world where everything you ever lost as gone to hide. Jellyfish don’t even have hearts, of course– no heart, no brain, no bone, no blood. But watch them for a while. You will see them beating.” ― Ali Benjamin, The Thing About Jellyfish