Tote bag
An anglerfish tote bag, with a pale green panel and black handles, and the portrait of Naoko Mochizuki printed on the front. The anglerfish is the deep-sea fish that goes around with a light hanging over its head, and Naoko is a marine claims surveyor. She appears in Animal Kinhood, my series of animals living like people.
Withdrawal & returns You have 14 calendar days to withdraw, with no need to give a reason (TRLGDCU arts. 102-108). Return it unused and in its original condition; you are liable for any loss of value from handling beyond inspection (art. 108.2) and return shipping is at your expense. Your statutory guarantee of conformity remains fully in force.
Foto: Emőke Dénes / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) Melanocetus johnsonii
The light a place already has is never any good. I always bring my own.
Meso and bathypelagic zone of tropical and temperate seas worldwide, usually between 200 and 1,500 metres deep, with occasional records a good deal deeper. Permanent darkness, cold and high pressure.
A three-metre tape measure, a set of hard pencils, two clear plastic bags, a handful of cable ties and a small desk lamp with a dented shade. The bags and the ties are for the personal effects that turn up loose in a cabin: she puts them inside, closes it with a tie and writes the cabin number on the label. The name she does not write.
The first survey she was given on her own was a sand dredger with a flooded hold, at night, on the outer wharf, with the quay floodlight blown for weeks. She was twenty-six. Before leaving the branch she took the lamp off the shelf and put it in her briefcase, and that is how it stayed: twenty years later it is still the office lamp.
