At night, they say, I’m a filter feeder. I like to picture myself a whale but in all probability I’m something like a barnacle. I think of my sins and triumphs in a somewhat vainglorious way, because barnacles have no morals and their conquests are slow & unassuming in nature. For instance, I filter sound. My colony neighbour has trouble sleeping. He wanders about, one inch in twenty nights. Next fall, he will have come full circle, again. I can project this with confidence. Strangely though, it should hardly be possible. Filtering sound, I mean. Sound waves travel too fast when getting wet, they don’t like it down here. What exactly “down here” means is an ancient mystery. Lately I’ve come to think I’m not fully submerged, at least not all the time. The fact I breathe air in between filtering sessions wouldn’t have escaped my attention forever. Will have to think about it.