Pulpo Gallego thrust-glides from air tank to air tank, her eight arms, a veritable polishing machine on each habitat's primary viewing surface. The large center air tank features three American buffalo, a snow leopard and twelve pangolins, all rescues. Two of three of her hearts quicken while imagining how the lumbering antics of these frightful land creatures entertain and educate larval and juvenile octopodes.
As a sixty month old Pacific Giant Octopus, Pulpo is nearing reproductive maturity. Still, she thrills at immersing herself in sanitation duties at Lazy Ledges Landlife Museum. The North Pacific facility is nestled in a remote inlet adjacent to the San Juan Islands. Without her dedication, thousands of paralarvae and juvenile octopodes drifting through the museum daily would leave lasting, gelatinous suction marks and excrement streaks everywhere. She takes great pleasure in keeping the glass surfaces sparkling and transparent.
The currents in the main observation area generally take the young octopodes through a scenic spiral that favors the central tank and a view of the bluffs above, Pulpo favors the often forgotten side air tank areas which feature habitats for would-be broiler chickens, bacon piglets and her personal favorite, a single member of the hominid family, a human by the name of Erik.
The plaque outside his tank is tentacle-etched with artistic flair. The colorful swirls detail how Erik was rescued as a mature juvenile.
Erik the hominid and his mate were retrieved from an adrift dinghy by Activist Team Kraken during a marine-life slaughter vessel raid in 1989. The female was immediately released once she was found to be healthy although irresponsibly impregnated, ostensibly by Erik.
Unfortunately, Erik's psychological injuries were considered extreme as he suffered from exposure to life-long, carnist indoctrination. As such, this remarkably bright creature has been cared for diligently by museum staff for the past thirty years. No expense has been spared. Erik is fed healthy kelp salads flecked with algae crisps and tossed with sea ginger vinaigrette. The ambitious thirty year hominid mission envisions Erik being released back in the wild with a more compassionate mindset on his fiftieth birthday.
Our hope is that Erik might inspire his world-dominating species to refrain from slaughtering millions upon millions of octopode-kind for Greek Food festivals and French Fusion chophouses.
Year 29.7 of Captivity Hi, I'm Erik. I haven't seen another human for 29 years so forgive me if I'm a bit brief in my story. I was kidnapped.
Pulpo Gallego presses her tentacle to the hominid's observation glass wall. Her arms pulsate colorfully wondering if the barking hominid understands any of what she intimates. She has devoted her many months to the museum's cleanliness. Sure, the vending machine which boasts plant-based, pickled sea cucumbers and peppered scallops is a delightful bonus. Between mopping and scrubbing, Pulpo often contemplates how octopus-kind transcended their survival-of-the-fittest evolution over the past few centuries. She wonders if Erik and his species are even capable of compassion. While she has worked at The Ledges, Erik has shrieked, banged, and spat from inside his habitat. Regardless, she likes to think she has a special connection with the bipedal primate. Of course, his cryptic grumbling and flailing may simply be too foreign for her to understand.
Pulpo and all her cousins' emotional intelligence has been hard won, especially since octopuses evolved without the need for significant socializing behavior. Despite having evolved to survive alone, modern octopodes developed their social skills artificially, which has enabled Pulpo Gallego to meet up socially each week with her chatty "Arm-Marms," allegedly to arrange shells and sip algae oil.
The Arm-Marms frequently speculate with trepidation upon what being an octopus mother might be like, since as mature females, each of them are mere weeks away from the joy of being offered a male's spermatophore nodules. Pulpo herself daydreams of Not Cala Mari, the male octopus who drifted in two weeks ago and made a home in the sunken death seiner at the south end of the inlet. Her mantle quivers in waves of seagrass green at the thought of his nodules detaching inside her.
If honest, her deeper orgasmic thoughts center on her would-be clutch of 180,000 eggs. Of course there won't be time to get acquainted with any of her paralarvae since she will perish soon after they hatch. After hatching, the marine elements and predators will claim 99 percent of them before they gain a full foothold on life. And sadly the human deathships will over time steal 99 percent of those that do survive into young adulthood, all part of the millions of octopodes destined for deep freeze and/or charcoal grilling by the land hominids.
Over many months her shell craft group has grown close. Sharing exhaustive rainbow flashes of primal fears has unified their sentiments on their species' likely extinction due to hominid impacts. Nevertheless, at the end of the last Arm-Marms session a gentle mellow signaling is exchanged symbolizing the empowerment of their aggregate life-times of reproductive planning. Final tentacle-tip goodbyes are twined flush with fluorescent pastels of hope.
Year 29.8 of Captivity I managed to get out of my prison cell once about twenty-seven years ago. My intent was to escape up the bluffs, but then I saw several fattened chickens in a nearby cell. Sure, I've gotten used to the tasty kelp salads, but I was taught as a youth that I need animal protein sources. I gnawed through three hens before the damned octopi security pulled me off and sealed me in my cell for good.
Pulpo makes one final visit to The Ledges facility. I look at Erik in his air tank habitat and deep down I know this isn't the life he would have chosen for himself. I squish my eye up against the viewing glass to size up his hairy alien form as best I can.
He doesn't cower behind his mock-up entertainment box as he did when we first met. And he rarely shrieks or grumbles anymore, which I take as a sign that he's adjusted. Today he simply lifts his two upper arms and extends both center tentacles in my direction. I'm smart enough to sense it might be a gesture of displeasure. I respond with a full-body orange glow implying the hope that the kindness shared over our many-month connection will serve as a bridge to interspecies harmony.
Year 29.9 of Captivity Communicating with the latest octopus prison guard outside is useless. I collapse on the slimy camper-van mattress next to the fake console TV in my cell. The TV itself is only good for hiding my precious barnacle treasures, each one a wished upon trinket calling for the US Navy to blast apart this insane prison and rescue me. I occasionally stare at the TV pretending Flipper and Love Boat reruns are on. It's partly how I resisted dementia for so long. Still, over the years, I've gradually gone numb and I rage internally, fantasizing how I will kill every one of these so-called intelligent monsters. If I escape, I know where I'm gettin' my next serving of extra protein!!
Pulpo Gallego side-strokes out of the museum entrance portal and catches the outgoing current. An expanse of dead coral glides beneath her and her body sighs with pink and cobalt flashes, conveying subconscious sadness at not being able to attend Erik the hominid's upcoming release party. She'll probably have hatched her clutch and be long dead before Erik even reaches his atmospheric civilization. Empathy surges colorless within her mantle.
The tidal current pushes Pulpo forward and her daydreams shift to how her offspring might one day be truly loved by hominid kind, and not with a wasabi rub and side of basmati rice. She chuckles darkly. Seriously, maybe with Erik's help the human herd will finally pick up the diplomatic slack and work to forge a healthy planet full of healthy ecosystems.
As the kelp forest and its multitude of sea urchins fades behind her, Pulpo's eight arms tingle in harmony. Her mind anticipates the ecstasy of securing Not Cala Mari's spermatophore nodules inside her. In the distance, through the swirl of ocean debris, Pulpo sees the skeletal beams of the deathship wreck bringing her ever closer to her destiny.
