sharks and studied the new shark’s behavior. She wasn’t eating and she lay in the sand, only a few feet away. The girl sat next to her in the sand, petted her, stayed with her. Then, in a quick movement she reached her arm into the shark’s mouth and felt the hook. It was large and had a fishing lure, a little yellow fish, attached to it. She pulled once. The shark with the foggy eye pulled back and swam away. She checked her air and waited, some of her sharks still circling her, drawing wider and wider circles, until finally they vanished out of sight. The new shark stayed with her and put her head in her lap. She reached into her mouth a second time but again was unable to remove the hook. The shark with the foggy eye disappeared into the dark. A shark’s eye is like the surface of the ocean: endless and unfathomable. Foggy Eye kept on returning, putting her head in the girl’s lap, until one day, the girl successfully removed the hook that was jammed deep into the shark’s flesh. Now sometimes when she raises herself up from the seafloor, the shark will lift up with her, resting between the girl’s hands. A small eternity passes. She doesn’t know whether it’s the shark who decides on this unexpected embrace or whether it is her. It doesn’t matter: in a world where words are absent, they seem fundamentally unnecessary. They all have a face and
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