Stephen Wolfram sent me a reference to a nice picture of cone shell in action. This little mollusc looks “greased and ready to kick ass,” as the doo-wop band Sha-Na-Na used to describe themselves. I had never realized how sinister these little guys are.
The picture is from Chuan Fong Lim and Victor T.H. Wee Southeast Asian Conus: a seashells book. (Singapore: Seaconus, Pte, Ltd. 1992).
I've been thinking about the tidal wave that hit Indonesia and Sri Lanka. And how after the first wave the ocean drew way way back, and people could see all these fish flopping around on the bottom — a few people making the classic mistake of walking out to collect the fish.
Imagine a science-fiction version. Due to some disruption, say a quantum supernova, reality is drawn away. Everything disappears in a certain zone, exposing the creepers and scuttlers that live “under” reality. Those flashes you see out of the corner of your eye, they're real. And now they're exposed, hanging there, flopping and twitching. They look like — cone shells! You step forward into the reality-drained zone, filling your collecting-bag with the specimens, but then — what's that rumble?
I think I'll use this image in Mathematicians in Love. Reality disruption when the lovers return from La Hampa.