Hagfish
Though hagfish have been around for over 300 million years, they’ve not evolved a ton. Researchers believe this is because hagfish have a defense mechanism so effective they have few natural predators. When under attack, glands lining their body release proteins that transform into slime the moment they hit water. The proteins expand 10,000 times their original size - so, a few tablespoons instantly become a five gallon cloud of snot. The gills of the predator become clogged, the threat of suffocation causing them to flee for safety.
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If you google “hagfish,” you’ll see pictures of the most common species, an eely looking freakshow with anemic-pink skin barely attached to its body, like a loose tubesock. Comblike-teeth that move horizontally and a rasping tongue make them equipped to rip flesh from carcasses foraged from the ocean floor. Boring holes into carrion face-first, they prefer to eat from the inside out.
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A YouTube video shows a group of hagfish tearing flesh from the bloated carcass of a whale. The feeding is ecstatic.
In a different video, a cloud of slime blooms from the jaws of a shark, the hagfish slipping away.
One article describes their anatomy: five hearts, boneless, blind.
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What does it feel like, the teeth of a shark closing down on you?
I shut my computer and stare into the dark, an undertow pulling at my ankles.
Will my daughter know it too?
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I want a defense mechanism so effective evolution is unnecessary for millions of years!
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Where on my body would I make slime glands, if I could?
Since glands in my nose would be too gross, I picture them budding from the smooth surface of my cervix, enhancing its natural slip.
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For 10 years, my husband and I had a recurring fight. He consistently ate 80 percent of the cookies - always chocolate chip, always baked by me. 100 percent of the time, he finished the last one.
Once, I’d rushed home from work anticipating the pleasure of a chipper microwaved for 10 seconds and consumed in three bites, only to find he’d eaten the last one again.
How can you do this to me? I hissed, my face a pickled beet.
I’m not doing anything TO you, he hissed back, I wasn’t even thinking of you.
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One reason I love my husband is that when he’s an asshole, he’s an honest asshole. He ate the last cookie a dozen more times before the issue surfaced in couple’s counseling. He admitted to this pattern without shame.
My love language is you not eating the last of the fucking cookies I bake, I said, kicking my commitment to nonviolent communication to the curb.
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After 10 years of eating the last cookie, my husband finally apologized.
I was an only child, he said, and I’m not used to making accommodations for others. But I understand eating the last cookie, every time, is inconsiderate.
His apology moves me. Within minutes, everything is slippery and we tumble into bed.
*
Hagfish are also called snot snakes, I say aloud, searching under the comforter for my underwear.
Huh? my husband asks, wobbling on one leg, his foot probing for the leg-hole of his jeans.
Suddenly halved by pelvic pain, I sit on the edge of the bed until it passes.
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Growing up, I had a neighbor who permed his hair and loved to make his pecs dance for the ladies.
On hot summer days, he’d strut down to a shared beach in a Speedo to tan on a square of reflective foil, occasionally standing up to flex his lats while commenting on the physical fitness of any woman in a bathing suit.
I’d submerge myself underwater to avoid his gaze, lifting just my nose and eyes above the surface, like a crocodile. I’d imagine sprinkling salt over his oiled body, extra pepper. I’d cinch the four corners of the foil, sliding him smoothly into the oven.
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Would you get a look at those gams, the neighbor in the Speedo said to me. Keep at it, he said, tracing the line of my body with a finger through the air, because if you don’t, you’ll end up looking like them.
He laughed, pointing to a group of women I loved.
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He used to go door to door selling knives, my mother told me. Can you even imagine?
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What did he say, anyway, in his polyester suit, holding a case of knives?
Ma’am, go clear your kitchen table and fix up a pot of coffee while I demonstrate how these knives will improve your life. Oh, you already own a nice set, let’s take a look. Haha, aren’t you sweet, these are a cheap set of knives, so cheap they’re dangerous. I’m going to offer you a 15 percent discount, since frugality is only a virtue until you lose a finger. No, no. No need to wait until your husband comes home, I don’t like it when my time is wasted and I’m sure he doesn’t either, how about another coffee while you grab your checkbook, that’s right, you need good tools to work in the most sacred area of the home, which is a woman’s kitchen. Congrats, hon, we just made your life better, and before I leave, I’m sure you have some friends who need this upgrade to their happiness too?
Slime would work well against high pressure sales, I suspect.
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An 81-year-old friend recently shared a secret with me that she’d only ever spoken aloud within the wooden box of a Catholic confessional.
She’d birthed eight children, all of them still living. But the birth of her seventh child was so difficult it almost killed her and the baby. At 31, her vagina was prolapsed, blood pressure out of control. Her husband worked incessantly to put food on the table, yet there was never enough to eat. Her church did not allow the use of birth control, since artificial contraception was evil.
When she discovered she was pregnant for the eighth time, she did not tell her husband. Instead, she got the name of an out-of-state doctor who performed abortions. But she could not afford the travel, the cost of the procedure, or the time away from her kids. The birth of her 8th was excruciating - a three day back labor followed by near-fatal hemorrhaging upon his arrival. Within a month, her son was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and a seizure disorder. He was in his 50s now, and still lived with her. He’s the most charming of all my children, she whispered. A wizard in the kitchen.
Her secret was not that she loved him best - which was true - but that she’d believed for most of her life that her son was born with disabilities because God had punished her for seeking an abortion.
When she confessed her fear, the priest behind the anonymity screen assured her that God does not give us more than we can handle. That she should pray.
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The skin of the hagfish is loosely attached to the body along the ridge of its back and filled with almost a third of its blood, giving it the impression of a blood-filled leg warmer.
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In the late 80s, the toy I loved most was called the Water Snake, a pliable plastic tube filled with liquid. Designed to allow movement within the contained unit of the tube, it was nearly impossible to hold, which made it fun. The moment you applied the grip needed to hold it, the pressure would displace liquid and send it slipping from your hand.
Unless you practiced, of course.
Catch! I’d holler, and fling the Water Snake through the air to a friend, who would snatch it from its projectile but find it impossible to hold long enough to fling back.
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When I met my 81-year-old friend’s son, I was attracted to his dry sense of humor and his green eyes.
We connected over social media, connected more due to a shared love for French cooking and Ricky Gervais.
There’s nothing more arrogant than praying to a god who didn't stop the Holocaust, thinking he’ll help you find your car keys, he posted.
I hearted it, then hearted a photo of his beef bourguignon, considered by many chefs to be the mother of all stews.
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It was an especially boring CCD class that I skipped in order to take my mother’s car without permission to my boyfriend’s house, where I smoked my first menthol cigarette and dry-humped him on the hood of her car.
On the way back to class, I prayed for help to wipe the shit-eating grin from my face.
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When I was 13, I spent the summer kicking everyone’s ass at Spit, a lively card game dependent on quick hand-eye coordination.
On the last day of our summer, before we packed up to head home, my sister beat me. She punched the air with joy, and I lunged across the table and slapped her across face.
Her expression proved I was godless.
For the next two days I spiraled with self-hatred until I tired of it, and apologized.
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Occasionally victim to their own friendly-fire, hagfish can sneeze to clear mucus from their single nostril.
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I had a boyfriend in my 20s who was so committed to spoken word, he once rhymed “bitch” with “Filet-O-Fish” and the poem was about my pussy. After telling him the poem was humiliating, he read it again in public a week later.
After refusing to talk to him for two weeks, I caved, and agreed to a walk through a public park to hear what he had to say for himself. After a stretch of silence under towering oaks, he wheeled around to face me, his face pink with rage.
If I wanted to be his girlfriend, I could not police his writing.
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Five years later, I attended a reading he gave at a coffee shop. Time tends to bleed men of immaturity, I thought, failing to get comfortable in a shitty plastic chair.
This is for Lauren, he announced to the crowd. It’s called Filet-O-Fish.
Before leaving the coffee shop, I let him know that his beard looked like a pile of pubes swept up from a public bathroom, glued to his face.
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He sent me snail mail.
In one poem, handwritten on the back of a napkin stained with coffee, he rhymed rabies with labia.
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Some hagfish species are endangered due to destructive fishing practices. This is especially problematic in areas where cod, haddock, and flounder are commercially fished and large amounts of bycatch discarded. The water suffers, since the bycatch rots at the bottom, and there are not enough hagfish to clear away the death.
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A flat mate from northern England once told me he’d put pubic hairs in my milk should I refuse to be his bird.
It was my first week in a new country, so I chalked up the strange behavior to cultural differences. Perhaps some Monty Python absurdist humor I wasn’t yet versed in?
Later in the week, suitcases unpacked and excited for classes to start, I went out for a pint and a game of snooker with a group of new friends. At the end of the night, he tried to kiss me, and I politely refused.
This enraged him.
As the weeks went on, I became skilled at avoiding him. During long stretches at the library, I satisfied my longing for sweetness by stuffing my face with English chocolate and tea biscuits, gaining twenty pounds in under six months.
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Some research shows hagfish can absorb nutrients directly through their skin.
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When I returned to the states after my year abroad, I sat across a sticky kitchen table from my ex-boyfriend, whom I still fucking, when he told me that he and his friends had rated the girls on campus.
I was a 5/10.
When I asked him why a 5, he told me I was 30 percent too large.
If I were a smaller version of myself, I’d easily be a 7.
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At work, an old man with lips the color of raw liver told me he’d looked at my website and saw a picture of me with short hair, which he did not prefer. I moved his walker out of the way and supported his elbow to help ease him into the reclining chair, where he’d receive a medical treatment from me.
Cripes, did he ever hate it when women styled their hair like men!
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Home after work that evening, I touched the cotton gusset of my underwear.
I’d ovulated a week early.
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A middle-aged man inquired if I would give him a better treatment if he paid more. When I told him that wasn’t something I did, he laughed and assured me that money was not an issue for him.
So what will I get if I pay more, he asked.
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When hagfish slime is stretched and dried, it makes a soft thread that can be woven into durable fabric. One website claims garments prepared from hagfish fiber have bulletproof properties, similar to Kevlar.
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When I finally saw a D.O. to address neck pain I’d been ignoring, the doctor, a man in his 60s, was holding my head in his hands when he began venting about the state of our country.
The downfall of the United States could be traced to women entering the workforce, he said, his voice thinning, thumbs pushing against my neck. I know you own your own clinic, he acknowledged, clearing his throat, but the truth is that -
Before he could say another word, I pulled my paper gown aside, spread my thighs, and covered his face in a 5 gallon cloud of snot.
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On the drive home, the puddle soaked the driver’s seat.
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After devouring two tins of sardines, silver flesh smothered in mustard and mashed over water crackers, I shed my clothes and stepped outside to absorb some sun.
No one needs to see those saggy tits! yelled a teenage boy from his bike, laughing and pumping his legs hard to speed away.
Since there’s no need to disrobe, I aim and fire, instantly knocking him from his bike.
I release another stream of goo, just to scare him good, and he crawls up to his knees, scrambling for his phone and crying for his mom.
Attempting to stand, he slips and lands on his back.
*
Discharging slime leaves me ravenous. Fist plunged into the cookie jar, my fingers scrape the ceramic bottom, leaving crumbs in my fingernails.
There’s a familiar ache in my pelvis. My husband will be home within the hour, and I can’t wait to see him.