Soft mud settles slowly in the warm salty water. It is quiet beneath the surface. There is a sudden movement! Where the Great Grey Dragon has left his mighty footprint a dull little fish swims out of concealing sediment into the main channel. Its tiny tail whips out towards the sea but at the crucial boundary it stops and sinks again.
A shoal of about thirty brilliant red and green fish flash past in iridescent glory. Their movements are simultaneous, restless and bright as they head out to the coral. The water is sweet with life on the leeward side. The murky churning near the shore gives way, all at once to the beautiful clarity of the currents above the deep waiting corals. Sunlight can more sharply illuminate the darting slippery bodies through a rippling blue ceiling; a turquoise interface to a forbidden world - a heaven that can be touched but only entered on pain of gasping death. Red branches sway gently where the community of coral polyps stretch into the welcoming sea. It is rich with food. Large grey-green crabs scuttle in worry over the floor. Further down are the thousands upon thousands of dead that have built this city. The past residents now support the living community as foundations in the softly moving dark, which keep their descendants in that gentle patterned light. Quick, quick are the little fishes! Now they move out to sea, now in again to graze at the spreading tendrils and the endless soft gaping mouths of the microscopic harvesters. An aqua sun tickles them in motion. Up and down, left and right, forwards and backwards are all the same. In and out of the twisted town they chase, as though there is no other sport. Their laughter is the tiny bubbles which flee from them, ascending into heaven. Their tears are the tiny coral bones buried in the darkness below them.
