The Jellyfish Movie

The Jellyfish Movie

Walking along, we made up a movie, seeing it happen.

The lights faded out like sunset, the curtains parted and

onto the screen the flickering movie began. A father

and son were fishing. Their feet dangled over the edge

of the pier, the boy kicking his sneakers as the man

sunk a hook through the worm and cast it out into sea.

They talked about the baseball scores and laughed

about their neighbor’s car. Hungry gulls watched

from the circling air and something else without eyes

sensed them through the cold water. The boy tugged

his fishing line, he thought he felt a bite. Small waves

lapped around pilings and his father was telling him

about the footbinding tradition in Japan, when a

weird noise bubbled towards them from the depth.

It sounded something like a backwards foghorn

being played in an oyster shell powered by

rubber bands. A tense moment passed, then

the father laughed, ruffled his kid’s blond crewcut

and lit a cigarette. His hands trembled, cupping

the flame. Quickly, he threw the match into the sea.

“When I was your age...” the man began to say,

but suddenly the water turned into foam as a

four-story jellyfish raised itself, gurgling out

of the water and pulled them away. The water

calmed down, the seagulls landed on the dock

and ate their abandoned chicken sandwiches.

That was it, the film slipping through the projector

clacked at the end of the reel. The houselights

came back on, calypso music played on speakers

for the two people waiting for the next feature.



Annotated Jellyfish Movie:
Yes, we used to walk along in Portland, Maine
past the movie theater and making up our own
big ideas like this one for a Super-8 film never made.

Jellyfish picture:
by Rustle