Unlike the other creatures that lived in the sea, the Jellyfish was a misanthrope. He was bitter and cynical and deeply suspicious of the intentions of the other fish, especially his two neighbours, the Sea Cucumber and the Snipe Eel. Despite the Jellyfish’s misgivings towards his neighbours, the Sea Cucumber and the Snipe Eel did, on occasion, try to extend a hand of friendship to the Jellyfish, even though they knew their efforts were in vain. Like most of the other sea creatures, they secretly suspected the Jellyfish had some sort of undiagnosed mental health condition and as such pitied him. Unlike the Sea Cucumber and the Snipe Eel, the Jellyfish was not married. Despite his promiscuous past and many sexual conquests, none of the other sea creatures wished to settle down with the Jellyfish. Indeed, they all agreed he was not a very likable character.
As of late, the Jellyfish had greatly taken to the pleasures of alcohol, in particular Dubonnet and gin which he would frequently consume all day long in his coral house at the bottom of the Coral Sea in the middle of the Coral Ocean. The Jellyfish had started drinking several years earlier, primarily due to his lack of job satisfaction, although the reasons for the Jellyfish’s alcoholism continued to vary and multiply over time. Ironically, the Jellyfish worked on a production line in a factory manufacturing jelly. But the Jellyfish did not find this ironic like the other sea creatures; he found it humiliating.
The Jellyfish had not always worked at the jelly factory. For a number of years the Jellyfish had been a television presenter, known for his controversial opinions, inappropriate anecdotes and misguided choice of metaphors. However the Jellyfish’s dreams of daytime television stardom were abruptly shattered when the Jellyfish was involved in a mysterious accident on the way home from a drug fuelled sex party. The accident left the Jellyfish with a silly limp and he was promptly dismissed by the television station. At this time a great deal of intolerance existed towards sea creatures with silly limps and it was decided that audiences were not yet ready to see a Jellyfish whose limp was openly so very silly. It was around this time that the Jellyfish’s characteristic malaise became apparent and he stopped talking to the other sea creatures.
Indeed, after a while, no one came to visit the jellyfish in his coral house, at the bottom of the Coral Sea, in the middle of the Coral Ocean. The only exception to this was the Octopus, who only visited the Jellyfish on special occasions. On these occasions the Jellyfish and the Octopus would rarely speak. Rather, they preferred to binge drink or play backgammon. On his birthday the Octopus would bring the Jellyfish a large bag of tobacco which, despite its size, was rarely enough to satisfy the Jellyfish’s insatiable appetite for smoking cigarettes. The Jellyfish was a keen cigarette roller and never used filters; as he rolled his cigarettes the Jellyfish could often be heard mumbling to himself that filters were only for women and homosexuals.
Whilst the Jellyfish’s racism was unexceptional and most likely purely casual, he strongly disliked gay sea creatures and would refuse to stand next to them on public buses or have his photograph taken with them. In a similar way the Jellyfish held women in very low esteem. These days one might go so far as to call him a misogynist. He was greatly influenced in this respect by the teachings of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and he regarded women solely as objects of sexual gratification, knitters and doorstops. Throughout his life the Jellyfish kept few close female acquaintances, but those women who did know the Jellyfish frequently complained that he treated them like furniture. For many years the misanthropic, alcoholic, misogynistic, homophobic and casually racist Jellyfish went about his business on the periphery of underwater society. However this was all about to change. As events unfolded, the Jellyfish’s life was to take a far darker turn and the Coral Sea would never be the same again... this is his story.
