Under a Bridge on a Hot Summer's Day

There are few places now where life can find respite on hot summer days. Shady spaces are contested real estate beneath trees and in the shallow waters under a bridge where countless plump, pink jellyfish congregate to hide from the heat. Thousands gather, pulsing in the warm brine. They look like brains that have escaped from skulls, their severed spinal cords now lethal clumps of thread hanging down to entangle the unwary. The species is thriving in the warming waters. These jellyfish have no eyes to see ahead. To them, all is now by nudge and touch. No thoughts of consequence or compassion trouble their gelatinous will, no desire to share halts their inexorable spread. To them there is only an unquestionable need. They have infiltrated our space, children of our kind, servants to a common greed.