UNCLASSIFIABLE

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JANUARY 2018

THE TEXT OF MY FAVORITE STORY

​LAURA ARCINIEGA 
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Dominic said, “You can find the Mariana Trench water column anytime. You can find the Mariana Trench water column that takes you to where you can smell the texture and hear the stripes only on Advent Sunday. I swam until I found it, then down through the marine snow for minutes or months or millennia—who knows? In the bathypelagic, a flabby whalefish came for me, angry over the name humans gave her, but she banged her face against the Advent water column like a neon tetra in an aquarium. By the time I reached lower midnight, my irises were bioluminescent enough that I could see the mile of ooze at the bottom of the okeanos. I’d swum 36,000 feet but when I spotted the Challenger Deep, I let myself float the rest of the way. It was like floating down to heaven.

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