"Liquid Space" (ACD, Retirement Era), 2014 JWP Amnesty Prompt #4
Title: Liquid Space
Author: gardnerhill
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD; Retirement Era)
Word Count: 221b
Warning:
Rating: G
Summary: A retelling of “The Lion’s Mane.”
Author's Notes: For the 2014 July Watson’s Woes Amnesty Prompt #4: Stellar. The Crab Nebula. Use this however it inspires you.
My God, it’s full of stars!
That was my true and heartfelt impression, the first time I looked up from the ocean floor.
For years scientists had used glass-bottomed boxes with which to view the contents of a shore-pool and the like. My few forays into open-eyed viewing beneath the waves during my morning swim produced only a disappointing blue-green blur and stinging eyes. Some men had begun exploring the sea-bottom with enormous bubble-like helmets that gave them a tiny porthole upon which to gaze at the sea.
But I wanted something easier to use, in shallower waters so that I need not armour my head against water pressure. I fashioned a sort of glass-bottomed box, but shorter and to be fitted over my eyes like the tortoise-shell goggles used by pearl and sponge divers for centuries. After much trial and error (and all the time in which to conduct such trials), I finally perfected a device which leaked very little.
How do I describe that first moment, looking up through the water as if at the heavens? Tiny algal and animal particles shone in the sun like stars; fronds waved over me like lazy palms.
…And a deadly Lion’s Mane jellyfish looked like a nebula, seen from below.
I was almost reluctant to kill the beast, it was so beautiful.
Author: gardnerhill
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD; Retirement Era)
Word Count: 221b
Warning:
Rating: G
Summary: A retelling of “The Lion’s Mane.”
Author's Notes: For the 2014 July Watson’s Woes Amnesty Prompt #4: Stellar. The Crab Nebula. Use this however it inspires you.
My God, it’s full of stars!
That was my true and heartfelt impression, the first time I looked up from the ocean floor.
For years scientists had used glass-bottomed boxes with which to view the contents of a shore-pool and the like. My few forays into open-eyed viewing beneath the waves during my morning swim produced only a disappointing blue-green blur and stinging eyes. Some men had begun exploring the sea-bottom with enormous bubble-like helmets that gave them a tiny porthole upon which to gaze at the sea.
But I wanted something easier to use, in shallower waters so that I need not armour my head against water pressure. I fashioned a sort of glass-bottomed box, but shorter and to be fitted over my eyes like the tortoise-shell goggles used by pearl and sponge divers for centuries. After much trial and error (and all the time in which to conduct such trials), I finally perfected a device which leaked very little.
How do I describe that first moment, looking up through the water as if at the heavens? Tiny algal and animal particles shone in the sun like stars; fronds waved over me like lazy palms.
…And a deadly Lion’s Mane jellyfish looked like a nebula, seen from below.
I was almost reluctant to kill the beast, it was so beautiful.