OPEN LETTERS
An Open Letter to the Sea Monkeys I Murdered
Rest in peace
Dear Sea Monkeys,
When I received you as a gift that fateful day decades ago, I was joyful. I didn’t know, couldn’t know, the pain and devastation to come. Who could have predicted I’d be sitting here in my late thirties, ruminating over what went awry so long ago?
Visions of you appear in my dreams. I often wake to my husband gently shaking me. “You’re mumbling about Sea Monkeys again,” he whispers. But how can I resist calling out to you? In my slumber, you dance and frolic — released from the shackles of your plastic tank.
In my dreams, you are free.
After almost 30 years, it is time to confess to negligent homicide. Or is it seamonkeycide? Is there a Latin word for Sea Monkey? I am no linguist, just a cold-blooded killer.
The year was 1991. Donning a Gremlins T-shirt, I gingerly opened your colorful cardboard packaging. I so desperately wanted to be like the gleeful children on the box, full of hope. Oh, the pride they must have felt — entrusted to care for their precious new pets. They would surely be dutiful parents. But, alas, I was not one of those kids. My story has no happy ending.
The box included the necessary ingredients and tools to create you, to call forth the miracle of life. But there was a horrible defect: the “Growth Food” you needed for sustenance was missing. I was faced with an impossible choice. Should I tell Mom? Perhaps she can solve this. Or, should I grow the Sea Monkeys anyway — knowing they cannot thrive?
Unfortunately, I chose the latter. The callous decision revealed a dark truth:
I was impatient, reckless, and quite possibly demonic.
I forged ahead. I followed the instructions and brought you into being. Life was bustling inside the tank in no time. I watched you swim and play. I marveled as you flipped and darted and dashed. You loved me. I was your glorious master and protector.
As days went by, your energy drained. You played less. Fanciful flips turned to fatigued flops. Frolic turned to float — Dead Man’s Float. It was time to say goodbye. There was no funeral, no honorable sendoff into the abyss. I dumped your lifeless bodies into the toilet and turned on Double Dare. Watching other children get slimed distracted me from an inescapable fact: I was the real slime.
Can you ever forgive me, oh dear Sea Monkeys?
I have a daughter of my own now. When she is old enough, I will buy her Sea Monkeys. I will make sure the food packet is included. Together, we’ll watch the creatures grow and tend to them lovingly.
We will become the happy children on the box.
Love,
Kristen