Hagfish
Though hagfish have been around for over 300 million years, they’ve barely evolved. Researchers think this is because hagfish are equipped with a defense mechanism so effective they have few natural predators.
When under attack, glands lining their snake-like body release proteins that transform into a cloud of slime upon hitting the water. In under a second, the proteins expand to 10,000 times their original size. So, imagine a 5 gallon bucket of snot. The gills of the predator are clogged, and the scare of suffocation sends them looking for Mucinex.
If you google “hagfish,” you’ll see pictures of a common species, its anemic-pink skin loosely attached to its body like a fleshy sock. With a mouth full of comblike-teeth that move horizontally and a rasping tongue, hagfish are well-equipped to rip flesh from carcasses found on the ocean floor. Boring a hole into carrion face-first, they prefer to eat their meal from the inside out.
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A YouTube video shows a group of hagfish tearing flesh from the bloated carcass of a whale.
One article describes their anatomy: five hearts, boneless, blind.
In another video, a cloud blooms from inside the jaw of a shark, the hagfish slipping away.
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What does it feel like, the jaws of a shark cracking down upon you?
I shut my computer and stare into the dark, an undertow tugging at my feet.
Will my daughter know it too?
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I want a defense mechanism so effective evolution is unnecessary for millions of years.
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Where might I manifest slime glands, if I magically could?
Since glands in my nose would be nasty, I picture them budding from the smooth surface of my cervix, enhancing its natural gift.
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For 10 years, my husband and I had a recurring fight about cookies. He consistently ate 80 percent of the cookies - chocolate chip and always baked by me. 100 percent of the time, he finished the last one.
Once, I’d rushed home from work anticipating the pleasure of a cookie microwaved for 10 seconds and consumed in three bites, only to discover he’d eaten the last one.
Again.
What the fuck?! How can you do this to me? I hissed, my face a pickled beet.
I’m not doing anything TO you, he hissed back, I wasn’t even thinking of you.
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One reason I love my husband is that when he’s an asshole, he’s an honest asshole. He ate the last cookie a dozen more times before the issue surfaced in couple’s counseling, his behavior admitted to without shame.
My love language is you not eating the last of the fucking cookies I bake, I said, kicking my commitment to nonviolent communication to the curb.
Ouch, he says.
100 percent of the time, I say, looking away.
*
After almost 10 years of eating the last cookie, my husband apologized.
I was an only child, he said, and I’m not used to making accommodations for others. But I understand eating the last cookie, every time, is inconsiderate. I’m sorry.
Within minutes of his apology, everything is slippery.
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Hagfish are also called snot snakes, I say aloud, searching under the comforter for my underwear.
Huh? my husband asks, wobbling, his foot searching for the leg-hole of his boxers.
Suddenly halved by pain, I sit on the edge of the bed until it passes through my pelvis.
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Growing up, I had a neighbor who permed his hair and loved to make his pecs dance for the ladies.
On hot summer days, he’d strut down to a shared beach in a Speedo to tan on a square of reflective foil, occasionally standing up to flex his lats while commenting on the physical fitness of anyone wearing a bathing suit.
I’d submerge myself underwater to avoid his gaze, but lift my nose and eyes above the surface, like a crocodile, and imagine sprinkling sea salt all over his oiled body, extra pepper. I’d cinch the four corners of the foil, sliding him smoothly into the oven.
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Would you get a look at those gams, the neighbor in the Speedo said to me. Keep at it, he said, tracing the line of my body with a finger through the air, because if you don’t, you’ll end up looking like them. He laughed, and pointed to a group of women I loved.
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He used to sell knives, my mother told me. Just imagine.
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What did he say, anyway, in his polyester suit, holding a case of knives?
Ma’am, go ahead and clear your kitchen table and fix up a pot of coffee while I demonstrate how these knives will improve your life, oh, you already own a nice set, let’s take a look, aren’t you sweet, honey, these are cheap, so cheap they’re dangerous, so I’m going to offer you a 15 percent discount, frugality is good until you lose a finger, no need to wait until your husband comes home, I don’t like it when my time is wasted and I’m sure he doesn’t either, how about another coffee while you grab your checkbook, that’s right, you need the best tools to work in the most sacred part of the home, which everyone knows is a woman’s kitchen, congrats, sweetie, we just made your life better, and before I leave, I’m sure you have some friends who need this upgrade to their life too?
Slime would work well against high pressure sales, I suspect.
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An 81-year-old friend of mine recently shared a secret she’d only ever spoken within the wooden box of a Catholic confessional. She’d birthed eight children, all of them still living. But the birth of her seventh child was so difficult it almost killed her as well as her newborn. At 31, her vagina was prolapsed, her blood pressure out of control. Her husband worked incessantly to put food on the table, yet there was never enough to eat. Her church did not allow the use of birth control, since artificial contraception was considered evil.
When she discovered she was pregnant for the eighth time, she did not tell her husband. Instead, she got the name of an out-of-state doctor who performed abortions, but she could not afford the travel, the cost of the procedure, or the time away from her kids. The birth of her 8th was excruciating - a three day back labor followed by near-fatal hemorrhaging upon his arrival. Within a month, her son was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and a seizure disorder. He was 50 now, and lived with her. He’s the most charming of all my children, she whispered, and a wizard in the kitchen.
Her secret was not that she loved him best - which was true - but that she’d believed for most of her life that her son was born with disabilities because God had punished her for seeking an abortion.
When she confessed her fear, the priest behind the anonymity screen assured her that God does not give us more than we can handle.
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The skin of the hagfish is loosely attached to the body along the ridge of its back and filled with almost a third of its blood, giving it the impression of a blood-filled leg warmer.
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In the late 80s, the toy I loved most was called the Water Snake, a pliable plastic tube filled with liquid designed to allow movement within the contained unit of the tube, which meant that it was impossible to hold. The moment you applied the grip needed to hold it, the pressure would displace liquid and send it slipping from your hand.
Unless you practiced, of course.
Catch! I’d holler, and fling the Water Snake through the air to a friend, who would snatch it from its projectile but find it impossible to hold long enough to fling back.
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When I met my 81-year-old friend’s son, I was attracted to his dry sense of humor and his green eyes.
We connected over social media, then connected more due to a shared love for French cooking and Ricky Gervais.
There’s nothing more arrogant than praying to a god who didn't stop the Holocaust, thinking he’ll help you find your car keys, he posted.
I hearted it, then hearted a photo of his beef bourguignon, considered by many chefs to be the mother of all stews.
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It was an especially boring CCD class that I skipped in order to take my mother’s car without permission to my boyfriend’s house, where I smoked my first menthol cigarette and dry-humped him on the hood. On the way back to class, I prayed that God could help me wipe the shit-eating grin off my face.
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When I was 13, I spent the summer kicking everyone’s ass at Spit, a lively card game dependent on quick hand-eye coordination.
On the last day of our summer, before we packed up to head home, my sister beat me. She punched the air with joy, and I lunged across the table and slapped her face.
Her expression proved I was a godless sinner.
For the next two days I spiraled with self-hatred until I tired of it and apologized.
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Occasionally victim to their own friendly-fire, hagfish can sneeze to clear mucus from their single nostril.
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I had a boyfriend in my 20s who was so committed to spoken word, he once rhymed “bitch” with “Filet-O-Fish” and the poem was about my pussy. After telling him the poem angered me, he read it again in public, only a week later.
After refusing to talk to him for two weeks, I finally agreed to a walk through a public park to hear what he had to say for himself. After a stretch of silence under towering oaks, he wheeled around to face me, his face pink with rage.
If I wanted to be his girlfriend, I could not police his writing.
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Five years later, I attended a reading he gave at a coffee shop. Time tends to bleed men of immaturity, I thought, failing to get comfortable in a shitty plastic chair.
This is for Lauren, he announced to the crowd. It’s called Filet-O-Fish.
Before leaving, I let him know that his beard looked like a pile of pubes swept up from a public bathroom and glued to his face.
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He sent me snail mail.
In one poem, handwritten on the back of a napkin stained with coffee, he rhymed rabies with labia.
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Some hagfish species are endangered due to destructive fishing practices. This is especially problematic in areas where cod, haddock, and flounder are commercially fished and large amounts of bycatch discarded. The water suffers, since all the dead shit rots at the bottom when there are not enough hagfish to clear it away.
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A flat mate from northern England once told me he’d put pubic hairs in my milk should I refuse to be his bird.
It was my first week in a new country, so I chalked it up to cultural differences, perhaps some Monty Python-like, absurdist humor I wasn’t yet versed in.
Later in the week, suitcases unpacked and excited for classes to start, I went out for a pint and a game of snooker with a group of new friends. At the end of the night, he tried to kiss me, and I politely refused.
As the days went on, I became skilled at avoiding him. During long stretches at the library, I satisfied my longing for sweetness by stuffing my face with English chocolate and tea biscuits, gaining twenty pounds in under six months.
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Some research shows hagfish can absorb nutrients directly through their skin.
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When I returned to the states after my year abroad, I sat across a sticky kitchen table from my ex-boyfriend, whom I still fucking, when he told me that he and his friends had rated the girls on campus.
I was a 5/10.
When I asked him why a 5, he told me I was 30 percent too large.
If I were a smaller version of myself, I’d be a 7/10.
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At work, an old man with lips the color of raw liver told me he’d looked at my website and saw a picture of me with short hair, which he did not prefer. I moved his walker out of the way and supported his elbow to help ease him into the reclining chair, where he’d receive a medical treatment from me.
Cripes, did he ever hate it when women styled their hair like men!
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Home after work that evening, I touched the cotton gusset of my underwear.
I’d ovulated a week early.
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A middle-aged man inquired if I would give him a better treatment if he paid more. When I told him that I treat all patients the same - meaning, to the best of my ability - he laughed and assured me that money was not an issue.
So what will I get if I pay more, he asked.
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When hagfish slime is stretched and dried, it makes a soft thread that can be woven into durable fabric. One website claims garments prepared from hagfish fiber have bulletproof properties, similar to Kevlar.
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When I finally saw a D.O. to address neck pain I’d been ignoring, the doctor, a man in his 60s, was assessing my cervical spine with his finger tips when he began venting about the state of our country.
The downfall of the United States could be traced to women entering the workforce, he said, his voice thinning, thumbs straining against my neck. I know you own your own clinic, he acknowledged, clearing his throat, but -
Before he could say another word, I slipped from the exam table, pulled my paper gown aside, spread my legs and covered his face in a 5 gallon bucket of snot.
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On the drive home, the puddle in my pants expanded. When I got out of the car and saw how big it had grown, how it had soaked my seat, I giggled like a girl.
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After devouring two tins of sardines, their silver flesh smothered in mustard and spread on water crackers, I shed my clothes and stepped outside to absorb some hot sun.
Jesus, no one needs to see that, you old hag! yelled a teenage boy from his bike, scowling and pumping his legs to race away.
Since there was no need to disrobe, I aim and fire, instantly knocking him from his bike.
On the ground, blinded by slime, he’s stunned.
I release another stream of goo, just to scare him, and he flips to his knees, scrambling for his phone and crying.
Attempting to stand, he slips and lands on his back, moaning.
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Discharging slime leaves me ravenous!
Fist plunged inside the cookie jar, fingers scrape the ceramic bottom.
There’s the familiar ache. My husband will be home within the hour, and I can’t wait to see him.