Orange Sponge

Description:

There was that ominous vibration through the colony, one that comes before huge pieces of us are torn away, we don’t try to escape although we can move several millimetres in a day, we just wait, those that can, begin producing more toxin or supply energy to those that do, the rest just hope. I don’t know why they call them angelfish, they are a thing from hell as far as I am concerned but a 6-banded angelfish bit into us, tearing off the cell right next to me, a body builder, a spongocyte, a beautiful cell. I was on the edge for the first time and could taste the full flavour of the open ocean, I was amazed for a moment and then horrified, a nudibranch, no several nudibranchs slid up, incredibly fast, with these massive tubes sucking up hundreds more of us. “As long as one of us survive we will grow back” I thought, until the angelfish returned for another bite, only this time its jaw detached from its body and melted into an oily darkness that smothered the whole body, completely, all of our passages were blocked and the pollution made my insides burn, I knew it was all over …. and then I woke up. Guardian: Max Gadd