The End of a Myth

摘要

Atdawn on a Remote Beach Along Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, in a world of pink and red desert and forests of cardon cactus, I come upon an unlikely mass stranding of Portuguese man-of-wars, or bluebottles. They've come ashore in the night and their blue sails are as bright and shiny as living tissue, as if the beach were strewn with thousands of excised lungs. Their tentacles lie hopelessly tangled around them, reminiscent of dissected blood vessels, giving the otherwise peaceful morning the feel of the abattoir, as if many animals have been butchered and their larger parts consumed.