His daughter stands next to him. He can still remember when she used to put her little hand in his and squeeze with all her might, with all her love. Those were the good days. These are good days too. They’re just different. Filled with different worries, and different concerns. More complicated too.

He looks down at that mostly empty universe. There are a few skimmers today. He watches their spindled legs bunch, and then rocket them forward across the darkness. He spits out a seed that has lost its saltiness. It floats away, downward forever.

“See those skimmers? Bet if we stood here long enough, a zyp’ll come up and try to catch one.”

“Dad, can we just get this over with? It’s kind of muggy out here today.”

He sighs. She has no respect for this tradition, but maybe after today, she would come to understand. Like he had when his dad had brought him out here.

“And they aren’t called skimmers. They’re called boatmen bugs. Funny little things can be so tiny, but they grow based on how big their environment is. Probably could grow big enough that we couldn’t see them anymore.”

“That’s why we put you through school. So, you can talk circles around your old man, and not worry about whether the zyp are biting.”

She doesn’t say anything after that. Not until they put together the pole and she retrieves the bucket of planets. He takes one. its rocky surface, warm, misshapen, and a little piece of itself orbiting around it. Probably got knocked around while they were hauling it out here. He attaches the line to it, and then spits onto the rock.

She says something, but he does not hear it.

“Huh?” he says because he was thinking about the bait he had just speared. He hates this part the most. Some zyps wanted other zyps, but some wanted planets teeming with life. Some even gravitated towards life that was sentient, water, sky, or land. The Black Morbler preferred land sentients so he had bought a bucket of worlds that would produce such a thing, and then, hopefully, draw a Morbler.

“I said—you know what? Forget it.”

He tries to, but he can’t.

So, he says, “I was just thinking about the bait. Sorry.”

“What about the bait?”

“Just about what kind of bait zyps want.”

They stare at the bobbing lure for a while before she sighs again and starts patting her pockets. No doubt looking for the notes she always keeps with her. Before she could find it, he hands her the rod and says, “let me go and grab some snacks. We might be here awhile. It takes the bait a bit before they start to develop life.”

“I know that.”

He says, “Well, then you know we’ll have to wait.”

She says, “I just don’t have a lot of time.”

He goes and grabs the snacks: a couple of packages of some ruddy pink sweet that his daughter liked when she was little. When he brings them back and holds them out as a peace offering, she shakes her head.

“Trying to lose weight. Besides I liked those when I was a kid. Not now.”

“Oh,” is all he can say.

And then, he tears open the package and starts eating them. They are fluffy, sweet, and disgusting. He takes one last bite before he throws the sweet out into the void. They stand there silently, looking at that shining pool of starlight and the pink dessert-shaped-disc as it sails away, growing smaller and smaller into the darkness.

Finally, he says. “You know, me and your mother used to come here and talk about our future. We’d sit on the bank and watch the little stars flash in and out of existence. Funny how quick they go.”

“Yeah, it sure is,” she says, and then with a smile, “that must have been forever ago.”

Sensing her goad, he answers, “Probably about time you and Carmila come out here, isn’t it? Start planning your future together?”

“Dad!” His daughter’s face flushes, and she coughs and clears her throat, staring at him with big eyes.

He puts his hands up. “Okay. Okay. Too far.”

She pushes back her hair and says, “No, not too far. I like her a lot. I’d spend the rest of my life with her. And we’ve talked about it too.”

“You have?” he asks. “Good. I’m glad.”

“Yeah,” she says. “You know, I’m doing some research about these types of bait. They’re actually kind of fascinating when you take a closer look at them.”

“Really?”

“Yep. The sentients start to develop civilizations, and then they build it up to something comparable to our own, and then in the next twenty seconds they tear it down. Sometimes irreparably.”

“What’s that mean? Irreparably?”

“Like they can’t fix it.”

“Oh.” And before he can ask his daughter if she feels like they are on the same course, or if maybe they are stuck on someone’s hook like the world on his is, there’s a tug on the rod, and the girl pulls just slight enough to ensure the hook embeds in the zyp’s flesh. A natural. He smiles, pride filling his chest.

And he says, “You’ve done this before.”

“I just remember you doing it.”

And he smiles all the more.

“It’s heavy.”

“That’s okay. Just let it wear itself out.” He puts his hand on her shoulder and watches the taut string ripple the darkness.

He watches the girl battle with the zyp for a while, and in between bouts of pulling and allowing the zyp more line, he opens another package of the sweet pink things and puts it down on the bank. He motions for her to give him the rod, and she does.

He feels the pull of the thing at once. It’s big, bigger than any Black Morbler should be. So big, in fact, that he is surprised the line hasn’t already broken.

She picks up the sweet things, and he smiles but doesn’t let her see.

And she says, “Part of my job is to look at the zyp, you know.”

And he says, “Uh-huh.” Because he’s concerned with how big this Morbler is. Of course, it could have been a Silver Kicker, but one push from that thing, and his line would be snapped, and he’d be lying on the bank.

“—floods the sentient’s brain with chemicals and electrical signals that mirror love and memory. The sentients likely experience a feeling unlike anything else. To be consumed by the chemicals and electricity that cause their brains to experience love, well, it must be an invigorating experience.”

And he says, “Uh-huh. Why don’t you come take the rod again, sweetheart? I got him all tired out for you.” Then when she takes the rod, and his own thoughts catch up, he says. “You know that people have been using this thing to get high for forever, right?”

“Really? Is that why we’re catching this?”

“Yep.”

After a few cycles of allowing the zyp to have some line, and then her reeling it back in, the man sees a dark shape getting closer and closer to the surface. And finally, she pulls a black wriggling mass out of the darkness of the universe. It is the biggest black Morbler he has ever seen.

She hands the rod to him, and he unhooks the zyp, then lets the Black Morbler wriggle its way onto his arm. He can already feel the tingling sensation.

“Now, I know this ain’t recommended by all you scientists, but…” he trails off, hoping that she will fill in the blanks.

She holds her hand out, and he reaches for her hand, and holds it. The Black Morbler crawls across their connection. They feel a tiny prick as the Morbler sinks its beak into their flesh. The sensation gets stronger like a wave cresting, spreading through his body, and he rolls his head back as the Morbler begins to work its magic.

It’s a different feeling than when his father had done this with him. That time he had felt his mother’s excitement at his first catch of a zyp. Now, he feels his daughter’s tiny fingers curl around his index. She squeezes and then yawns. That love encapsulates him. Slowly, he detaches himself from the Morbler, allowing it to crawl fully onto his daughter’s forearm.

It is her moment after all, her moment to see what love truly is.

She holds her arm out for a while. Her eyes glazed over, looking towards the horizon, but taking nothing in. Then she looks at him, and tears come to her eyes.

These are the good days, he thinks.

He says, “We should take this back to your mom, and have her fry it up. We can freeze the rest for later.”

But she says, “I was thinking we should throw it back. I don’t like disturbing the natural order any more than I have to.”

“All right,” he says, a touch disappointedly, but that’s okay. Traditions could change.

She peels the oily black mess from herself and hands it back to him. As it begins to wrap its tentacles around his arms, he tosses it back into the universe, so that it can devour more sentients and then, in time, die, and be devoured by other, smaller zyp.

Elijah Woodruff (He/Him) is a high school English teacher who doesn’t do it for the money but wouldn’t mind being paid a little more. He spends his free time drinking way too much coffee and hanging out with his fiancée. You can find him on twitter: @Woodrelli.