Polyps

1

My knees and hands were bleeding and hurt like the dickens, but I was still holding onto the seashell I had picked up from the darkened area under the beach house. My older cousin Toto, who had accidentally pushed me down onto the sharp stones, lifted me up by the armpits and set me straight. His head almost touched the house floor overhead, but he carefully drew me out of the confined space into the sunlight.

"I’m sorry” he apologized, noticing the battered condition of my body.

I opened my eyes with a start. It had been a nightmare, a vivid recounting of an event from my childhood, seventy years before. Only a dream, but it had left me shivering with cold sweat. Then, as I became fully awake, the dream turned into a full memory.

There had been a wild storm the night before, and I had sought refuge in my parents’ bedroom as the thunder boomed and lightning flashed, seemingly just outside our door. Yet, cradled in my mother’s comforting arms, I went back to sleep as quickly as only a seven-year-old can.

The morning showed bright and clear. The tempest had blown itself away, leaving only a roiling sea in its wake. Toto and I put on our swimming trunks and ran out, streaming across the short sliver of sand that passed for a beach and splashing into the water. The surf was cold and it was hard for me to keep standing against the back-and-forth rolling of the waves. I still had not learned how to swim and could only waddle. We tried horse-playing, but soon gave up as we kept bumping clumsily into each other.

“This is no good. Let’s get out and go looking for shells,” urged Toto, who was eight years my senior and therefore the leader in our activities. We shuddered the cold water off our swimming trunks and started walking up and down the beach searching for treasure. It was a disappointment: the beach was littered with all manner of sea shells, but thanks to the violence of the storm they were mostly broken, and the few that remained intact were small and uninteresting.

“Tori, let’s go back home and have some pancakes,” Toto suggested, and I dutifully followed him.

We reached the large beach house across the road from where we stayed. We had been cautioned to stay away from that property, for the owners were nasty and their huge guard dog was nastier still. We were skirting around the house when Toto grabbed me by the arm. “Tori, look!” he called out, pointing at something under the house.

As all beach houses near the ocean, our neighbors’ home sat on wooden stilts that protected the property from flooding. The area framed by the stilts was dark and extended the length and width of the house, and I normally stayed clear of it, since I found it a little scary. But Toto was directing my attention at the pebble-covered surface under the stilts.

I looked. The sea had washed under the stilts during the storm and, in retreating, had left behind a few seashells that seemed in better condition than the ones on the beach.

We walked over to the back of the house and looked behind the stilts. Toto had focused his attention on a narrow area that was hit by the mid-morning sun. There, a number of shells gleamed on the light among the paving pebbles. “One or two look fine!” he shouted excitedly.

I ran ahead of him and squeezed behind the stilts. There were, indeed, several shells that seemed to have survived being tossed and crashed around. Taking a close look at them, though, I realized that those that were intact were small and drab. I was getting ready to come out when I saw something glinting in an area way back, near a metal utility box. It was tantalizingly near, but almost out of reach. I got on my hands and knees and started crawling towards the object. Toto, who was following closely behind me, bumped into my back, lost his balance, and crashed on top of me, sending me sprawling against the pebbles.

I tried to get up, and in the process my hands, naked feet and knees got painfully scraped by the sharp ground stones. Ignoring the pain, I stretched my right arm forward and plucked the object from the underside of the box, where it had become wedged.

As Toto got me out of the darkness and I was able to examine the loot, I gasped. It was a shell, almost as large as my hand. It was irregularly shaped: pointed at both ends, with a fat cavity on the bottom where its snail inhabitant used to reside. Mostly white, it had a series of delicate butterscotch strands of coloration running diagonally around the shell’s surface, which was covered with spine-like protuberances. (I later learned that shells of that type belong to the murex family, and the larger ones are prized by collectors.)

I was admiring my acquisition when Toto brought me back to reality. “We need to go home so you can get your cuts and scratches treated. Let’s go!”

***

My mother was normally placid and easygoing; for that reason, her reaction as I came into the house, followed by a sheepish Toto, was remarkable. She pressed me to her bosom, crying dramatically: “My baby! What happened to you?!” As I stumbled for words to explain our adventure, her mood became increasingly angry: “What were you doing under that house? Didn’t we warn you those people were bastards?! Didn’t I tell you to stay away from them?! What if they had sicked their dog on you?! And look at what you have done to yourself!!” And then, turning to Toto, she vented some of her anger on him: “And weren’t you supposed to look after Toribio? Wait until I tell your mother!”

Toto started to explain: “We were just looking for seashells…”

“Looking for seashells? That’s stupid! He’s just a little boy but you’re old enough to grow a beard! Get out of my sight!” Toto made a hasty departure, and made himself scarce the rest of the day.

My mother took me to the bathroom and proceeded to clean my wounds, applied mercurochrome to disinfect them, and covered a couple with plastic bandages. She ignored my wincing but, as she was working on one of my knees, noticed that I was still holding the murex shell on my right hand. “And what’s that?” she asked sharply.

I cowered. “Just a shell I picked up.”

“Hand it over!” she demanded.

I reluctantly gave her my prize. “Is that why you got under the neighbor’s house?!” She was getting upset again.

“Yes, but…”

She finished bandaging and let go of me, but not of the shell.

“Well, the punishment for your disobedience is that I’m going to get rid of this shell!” She waved the murex in front of my eyes.

“Please, no…!”

She got up and returned to her bedroom, still clutching the seashell. I was left behind, disconsolate and humiliated.

2

As I grew into my teenage years, my attraction for the sea did not wane, but intensified. This was perhaps tied in an obscure manner to the memory of the marine treasure that I had once lost to my mother’s fury; in any case, I welcomed every opportunity to go to the beach. However, I no longer searched for seashells and ignored those the tide cast my way.

When I was fourteen, my father took us to a marine park for a short vacation. There, I went snorkeling for the first time and found myself swimming by a shore coral reef. It was a life-changing revelation. I marveled at the rounded underwater hills that seemed planted on the seabed; their scalloped surfaces, like giant brains, were hosts to myriad tiny fish, sponges and mollusks of all kinds. The hills were crowned by fantastical protuberances, tubes, wide lacy fans, antlers, bunches of berry-like little spheres… And the colors! Through the clear waters of the bay, I delighted in the deep reds, oranges, yellows, blues and purples of the convoluted walls of the coral hills, which seemed to join together into walls that stretched forever, hugging the coastline.

I was hooked. From that day forward, my ambition was to get to know the secrets of those coral forests. I went to college and majored in marine biology, and soon learned that those enticing corals were not plants but animals, and harbored secret lives even more exciting than the busy goings-on on their surfaces. For the architects of these underwater forests were humble beings known as polyps: small, transparent little tubes with sac-like bodies and mouths encircled by tentacles. They are soft, nocturnal beings that protect themselves from predators by constructing strong external skeletons made of limestone. Their bodies harbor tiny algae (which give the corals their beautiful colors) and the spaces between adjacent corals serve as shelters for many small creatures that find protection there from would-be predators.

I became a college professor and a marine biology researcher. Investigations of life in the coral reef informed my research and resulted in a spate of papers that gained me international recognition in life science circles. The last paper before my retirement was perhaps the most famous. Entitled “Polyps and Men – Life Lessons from the Coral Reef,” it was a semi-philosophical work whose main thesis was presented upfront in the introduction:

As I studied the life cycle of coral reefs, it dawned on me that it is an imperfect, but powerful analogy to the fate of human beings. The life of a polyp is brief, but the strong skeleton it builds joins the myriad other shells built by its predecessors, contemporaries, and successors, to form a community that continues to grow year by year and endures for many centuries. An individual polyp may be gone, most likely forgotten altogether, but its contribution to the species lasts as long as the species itself continues to thrive. And thus, a modest but essential path to immortality is granted to each individual regardless of whether its short existence was filled with joy or sorrow; whether its deeds were celebrated or condemned by its contemporaries; whether it lived in isolation or provided shelter and comfort to others.

The paper elicited much commentary and was debated well beyond marine biology circles. After my retirement, I was invited to travel to Miami to present it on the occasion of my receiving a lifetime achievement award by the American Society of Underwater Biology. I am in my late seventies and do not travel much but could not pass up the opportunity to give one last speech on my favorite topic.

The talk was a success, as far as those things go, and I was assembling my papers and getting ready to leave when I received an unexpected visit. A young man in his twenties, with a large cardboard box held precariously under one arm, approached the podium.

“Hi. You may not know me, but I’m Carlos, the oldest son of your nephew Gerardo.”

I was taken aback. My late brother and I never got along and had hardly spoken in the last five years of his life. I also was out of touch with my nephew, who had stayed back in Miami while I went to Hawaii to attend college and, later, to teach and study the vast coral reefs in the Hawaiian Island chain. Because of the long distance that separated us and the strained family circumstances, I had never seen Carlos before.

“Oh. I’m happy to meet you, Carlos. Thanks for coming.” I felt a little embarrassed for not trying to contact Gerardo and his family in advance of my trip to Florida.

“You are welcome. It was a very interesting talk.”

“Thank you. How are Gerardo and your mother?”

“Mom is fine. Dad could not come because he was in an accident at work and the doctors have ordered him to stay home.”

“An accident? What happened?”

“He fell off a ladder while doing a home inspection. He is fine, just has a broken leg that needs to be mended before he can move around.”

“My plane does not leave until four tomorrow. I can come visit with him tomorrow morning.”

“That’ll be great. He always talks about you.” There was a pause. Then he continued: "Anyways, he sent me here to deliver this box to you.”

“What’s in it?”

“When great-grandmother died, your brother went through her possessions and put in this box some items that belonged to you. I imagine he was intending to give them to you some day, but the two of you never got together, so my father inherited the box and the assignment to deliver it to you. And now he handed it to me.”

“I see. Thanks a lot.” We brought the box to the speakers’ table. It was taped, but the tape was old and brittle and was easy to remove. When we lifted the lid, there was a smell of old and decaying paper.

I quickly rummaged through the contents. Old diplomas, photos from my school days, a few medals I had collected over the years, a couple of books, a diary I had started keeping as a freshman in college and abandoned almost immediately. Then, on the bottom, a large irregular object.

“What is that?” asked Carlos.

At first, I could not reply, since a knot had developed in my throat and was choking me. Finally, I muttered: “It’s a shell I picked up once when I was a kid. I haven’t seen it in many years.” I could not go on, as my eyes filled with uncontrollable tears.

3

That night, at the hotel, I could not sleep at all. Memories and regrets circled around my head like birds of prey hunting for a victim. I sat at the desk, lounged on the easy chair, and tossed around in bed. The result was the same, too many questions with no easy resolution.

I had managed to toss away those whose behavior had caused me pain or not met my needs or expectations. Staring at the seashell I realized how much my mother had loved me and how little affection I had bestowed on her after that fateful day seventy years ago. I was never cruel to her, or outwardly inattentive, but in my heart of hearts I had erected a barrier that had prevented me from giving her a full measure of love. I recalled how people had remarked about my composure the day of her funeral, when I failed to shed a tear as she was taken away.

My marriage had been another instance of failed love. Almost from the start I recognized that my wife and I had little in common and shared few interests. Instead of seeking to accommodate her infatuation with soap operas and sales at Bloomingdale’s, I retreated into myself and buried myself in work in order not to have to seek common grounds with her. When she died ten years ago, my mourning was brief and insincere. I never realized how much I missed her and how important a part of me had been peeled away with her passing.

The rest of my family could well deserve to be discounted, but I wrote them off too easily. My brother was a failed human being, but I never tried to meet him halfway. It may not have mattered, but I never gave myself a chance to find out. And the rest of the family, my nephew Gerardo, my other nephew Agustín who had left for Spain never to return, they all were innocent bystanders deserving more attention than the holiday cards and presents I sent every Christmas.

And the tally extended as well to my friends and acquaintances, from days old and new, whom I had let go casually by allowing our friendship to wilt for lack of care like a plant abandoned on a windowsill.

The sad truth was that the attention that I had bestowed on my profession had been denied to other parts of my life. I was, sadly, alone by choice.

My world view became exposed for what it was: a cop-out from facing the realities of life. A coral colony is perhaps a comforting model for the afterlife but does not help with handling the demands of existence while we are alive. The polyp is not only humble, but solitary. Man can aspire to die like a polyp but must not live like one. For all its unsavoriness, life raises intimacy needs and grants rewards that must not be given up.

I had lived too long, and yet not enough. It was time to start living again.

4

I was almost grateful when there was a soft knock on my room door. I had finally fallen asleep with my clothes on, so I shook fatigue out of my eyes and opened the door to my grandnephew who had come to fetch me.

Carlos was a bit startled when he noticed my wrinkled look. Before he could say anything, I apologized: “Sorry about my appearance. I could not get to sleep until a couple of hours ago. Do you mind waiting a few minutes while I take a shower and tidy myself up?”

His face broke into a smile. “No problem. I’ve no school today. I’ll go down and get us some coffee while you are getting ready.”

Twenty minutes later we were sharing some strong coffee and a few guava pastries. “I had forgotten how well people eat here in Miami.”

“That’s not all you have forgotten.”

“Touché” I replied. Then, getting up, I hugged the lad. “Let’s start taking care of that. I want to hear your dad bitch about his broken leg.”

Matias F. Travieso-Diaz is a Cuban American engineer and lawyer who, having retired from the practice of law, rediscovered the pleasures of creative writing. In addition to fiction in both English and Spanish, he has written papers on issues relating to Cuba and miscellaneous other topics. You can find him at matiastraviesodiaz.com.