Field guide No. 801
Impossible reflections in a tidal pool
The rocks have company below.
Three rocks rise from a clear tidal pool, each mirrored below by a different cluster of shells and sea stars. The water is keeping two versions.
Field noteA reflection is an image of its rock. These three show different shells and stars instead.
- Specimen
- No. 801
- Genus
- Generated
- Kind
- Impossible (the round square kind)
- Breaks
- Category
- Where it doesn’t exist
- A clear tidal pool among dark rocks.
- Nearest existing relative
- A rock in a tidal pool.
- Filed in Fresh slop as
- Spaces
Also impossible, also breaking category
Bottomless fitted sheetA fitted sheet stretches over a hole in a lawn. The bed has misplaced its bottom.
An honest reflectionA mirror showing somewhere else is a mirror and a window at once. Mud on the sink takes the window’s side.
A fused wing of starlingsFlocks are many birds keeping apart. Here they are one bird and many at once, sharing a single wing.
The tidal channel’s shed skinWater keeps no skin to shed. This channel peeled off a clear one, every ripple kept, and moved over.