Bloom

Smucker was sweating, and for once it wasn't from anxiety. A half-mile swim wouldn't normally be so taxing, but today he was weighed down by cargo. Shouldn't be much further now, he thought, wondering if lunch would be provided afterward. Thinking of the baby brine shrimp he'd had for breakfast made his coelenteron growl. 

Just in time, the encouraging calls of the action leader rippled to him through the water. "Contract! Expel! Contract! Expel! You're doing great, jellies! We're almost to the reef!"

Smucker wiped his bell with his third tentacle and shifted the sea cucumber from his seventh to his eighth. It wriggled a little, but remained inside in. He'd been nervous about toting the delicate creature so far, especially since his nematocysts had been acting up. The last thing he needed was to accidentally sting the thing and have it eviscerate early in front of the entire bloom. Timing, they had been advised on this mission, was everything.

Project Rainbow was Smucker's first foray into environmental activism, though it was not motivated by starry-eyed idealism. He was as concerned as anyone else about the bleaching of the reef, but he also needed to make friends. His sister had seen the event promoted on Facebook, and it seemed as good an opportunity as any to work on his social phobia. With eight hundred other jellyfish participating, he'd be forced to interact with at least a few. 

"You have to come out of your shell," his sister had chided him. "And it's for a good cause."

"Cnidaria don't have shells," he said. "But okay, I'll do it."

So, keeping his doubts about the operation to himself, he signed up. And now here he was, one among many. Ready to do his part. Happy to help. Hoping to connect. 

A bump on his bell snapped him out of his reverie. "Sorry about that." Smucker looked up to see that the group had stopped. He'd collided with his nearest neighbor, a bloodybelly comb with thousands of exquisitely sparkling cilia. "I think we're here." The glowing red jelly nodded toward the sea floor. 

Smucker looked down. The reef stretched out as far as his eye clusters could see. Not entirely white yet, but its faded hues were a pitiful sight. It was in desperate need of algae, and lots of it, if it was going to stand a chance of recoloring. Smucker was suddenly gripped by gravity of the quest. He glanced at the gelatinous blob beside him. 

"I'm Smucker," he said, holding out his ninth tentacle.

"Bubble. Good to meet you." 

"So, do you think this is actually gonna work?"

"Theoretically, it should. But it seems like a long shot to me. Either way, we're gonna get lunch out of it." Bubble winked at Smucker, who laughed. 

Just then, a reverberating wave of shouted instructions reached them. "Jellies, prepare your cucumbers!" It was time. 

Smucker and Bubble raised the bloated pickles they had carefully carried across the lagoon. Behind and above them, several hundred others did the same. The bloom of jellyfish waited, listening, united in the moment. Below them, the coral seemed to flex and splay its billions of spindly arms and fans, as if in anticipation of the drop.

"On three, everyone! One! Two! Three! NOW!"

And with that, eight hundred jellyfish squeezed eight hundred sea cucumbers, who inverted themselves instantly. Trillions of algae gushed from their spent bodies and floated down to the washed-out coral reef. The jellies watched and cheered as the microscopic organisms drifted slowly, finally settling into the ripples and facets of the coral. It would be weeks before they'd know if their efforts had any impact, but right now they reveled in the triumph of a job perfectly executed.

Bubble bobbed beside him. "Well, I guess that's that." They released their inside out cucumbers, who inched limply to join the others. They would be sore for a few days, but otherwise fine.

"They are feeding us now, right?" Smucker realized this was the most he'd conversed with anyone in recent memory. His sister was going to be proud.

"Hope so. I could destroy some phytoplankton. Hell, I could eat zooplankton right now. Did you see how fat my cucumber was? That sucker was heavy." Bubble rambled on, and Smucker felt a growing warmth that had nothing to do with the current that buoyed them along. As the pair of jellyfish floated companionably together towards their well-earned lunch, the sun's rays flashed and danced in the ocean blue, illuminating the bloom of a brand new jellyfish friendship.