Unisex sweatshirt
An anglerfish sweatshirt with the portrait of Naoko Mochizuki printed on the front. The anglerfish lives in the band of the ocean where sunlight no longer reaches and carries a small light hanging over its head to draw in whatever passes close by. Naoko appears in Animal Kinhood, my series of animals who wear clothes and get on with their lives like people, and she works surveying ships.
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 meters deep, with occasional records a good deal deeper. Permanent darkness, cold and high pressure.
She can go a whole day without a bite and then clear the table at a working lunch while everyone else is still on the first course. If anyone notices, she says she has not had time for breakfast, and it is true that she has not had time. She does the same with the box her sister Yuka sends every New Year, with a week's worth of food inside: it is empty by the end of the afternoon.
Yuka lives two stops down the line, with two kids and a house full of people at all hours. She sends the box, Naoko empties it and thanks her by message the next day. They do not talk on the phone. They see each other at their parents' house at New Year and at obon, and Naoko arrives once they have started, sits wherever there is room and leaves before the fruit comes out.
