The thought of death underwater has developed into a particular fascination for me. I am not prone to violence and do not seek it out. I find it appealing, however, the thought of sand seeping between your toes as the water encircles your ankles and calves and your knees disappearing in blue-black liquid flowing up and down, rising and falling, heaving and surging until the frothy fingertips latch themselves around your waist and link you to themselves as they slide you under and it feels as if you are flying downward though something like a solid, only heavier. The ocean fits itself to you, as if a mold, encasing you and memorizing your form every fraction of a millisecond. And when this weighty sheath captures you I can only wonder what it is like to look up and see the black liquid pooling itself over the top of your head, closing over it like a shaft to which you don’t need a key because the light streaming though the crests plays through like a xylophone, a spectrum of light, lightest to darkest, undulating and encircling objects inanimate and sentient. Octopuses, too, hold a fascination for me, and I daresay that above any sea creature I favor this one the most. I envy those who have seen an octopus underwater. Some fear them; I do not understand why they are afraid. I think of eight supple legs ensnaring me, the underside’s little suction cups like a thousand water nymphs’ quick little sucking kisses on the inside of my arm. I once touched the leg of a squid and found it hard to not press it to my cheek, pull it off again; instead I pressed it between my fingers and listened to the diminutive sound it made, like children pulling a whole sucker out of their mouth quickly. When I was six I was stung by a jellyfish. At first my fingers grazed its top, a soft texture, its reverse a smooth interior I couldn’t resist stroking. I did not resist when it closed its tentacles around my ankle, each lit thread a miniature firecracker pressed from my forefinger to leg.