A Thread not named Fred (Gambar 6)

Three years earlier, a restless crab irritated a relaxed oyster.

We'll call the crab Buster and the oyster we'll call Paul.

Paul hadn't moved in years. A strong set of organic threads attached Paul to a reef named.......

Okay, we're not gonna name reefs.

That would be as silly as naming organic threads. We're not gonna do that either.

Although I am tempted to call the organic thread Fred.

Let's resist that temptation and get back to the oyster named Paul.

Anyway, Paul was serene and content, filtering plankton through his gills when Buster, always looking for an advantage and passing for plankton,managed to find a place within Paul.

Of course, Paul was insulted.

When irritated by Buster, Paul did what pearls always do do. They cover it up.

Paul secreted epithelial cells from the inside of his shell. 

Scientists know these cells as nacre.

We know the cells, if we know them at all, as mother of pearl.

Paul had another name for Buster, the filter, the mother of pearl and for the hollow in his soft tissue, near his gonad.

Paul called them nuisances.

He clung to his reef even as the nuisances grew more perfect.

As if a nuisance could ever be perfect.