...

Shellcreature was a red fist of spittle in the mouth of a dog.

Shellcreature was the first hair to stand up, gentle like inevitability.

Shellcreature was a coffee grain always at the point of vanishing into the drain, in the weight of downwardsness, in spinning and spinning and spinning...

Shellcreature was singing

though she didn't notice at first. She was sending out little phrases of song absentmindedly into the dark. When she noticed, she thought for a moment that it was the voice of someone else, or the voice of the sea. She had argued with the sea many times, but never sang to it. Then she noticed that her tongue was moving. There was a buzzing in her throat. She was shaping the air into something.

Odd, thought Shellcreature. What was she singing? Was it something she remembered? All she remembered was a song that said 'I want you like the end of winter'. But she wasn't singing that...