The Galápagos Islands, littered with Endemics, lying to keep themselves alive. Corinne, a Cormorant, is adamant. “We’re not devolved. We’re just content. We don’t need to travel the world, breed with other species, grow strange limbs, spotted coats, and speak in strange tongues. I don’t even like traveling, anyway. I like it here. The sun sets and rises in the same skies and the seas are blue.” By her side, a leather-skinned tortoise celebrating another fistful of decades makes the second of its bi-annual migration to the mossy rocks across the inlet. “You see, you’re always changing. You don’t give yourself any chances. You’ll learn sometime that sticking around isn’t a terrible thing.”
[Buy Neptunes.]
(illustration by Justine L. Hirten)