THE OCTOPUS UNHINGED

Chapter 5

fffffffft. "See how my hands are divided into two flat pads? I know it looks stupid and you're probably thinking why evolution would do something like that, but it totally works. Think of my hands as like a molding clay with suction cups. Any object I grab is totally achievable as long as it's not too sharp. I've known friends way, way, way back in the day when form enhancements became the normal thing to do and increasing the toughness of skin became popular among my kind. The thought did cross my mind to conduct form enhancements on myself once we began exploring outside of Earth but I kept my body natural. It was more thrilling that way." fffffffft.

"How I kept myself living for so many years is the simple part. That was something my species discovered naturally long before we began exploring space. From time to time I think about Earth, but once a real connection is made with the universe then it kind of becomes redundant to think of it as home. Anyway, going back to what I was saying...We knew Humans were living on Earth before us. We knew that your species made it to space as your satellites continued to spin around the planet. There were even structures and footprints found on the moon. So what happened to such a powerful civilization? Where did you go? These were some questions that pondered our combined thoughts and we collectively focused on the natural forces of Earth. Nature for us was the next frontier."fffffffft.

"Now this next part of the story is where the magic begins. This is the part of the story where we physically connected with nature. Our first connection was the greatest breakthrough for our species. Others would argue otherwise. Such as when we discovered how to time travel. Or when we opened a portal into another universe. But for a species to discover open communication with nature at such a young stage of sentient evolution was very rare for this universe." I have a friend from the fourth dimension who can back me up on that. I wonder how old Zee is doing these days.

fffffffft...ffffffffffffffffft, whoa, head-spin.

"Eh hem. So our way of opening the dialogue with nature began with pumpkins. We tried every other type of vegetable, fruit and herb but in the end, the pumpkin proved to be the winner. It began with a single octopus squeezing inside a purposely grown, seedless pumpkin. Sounds stupid right? But a long distant ancestor of mine, known as The Page of Life (we can just call her T'ani for short) had an incredible ability to translate thoughts through Interconnected Brain Stimulation as seamlessly as light moves through space. T'ani was chosen by the wisest and most respected of my kind not only for her ability but also for her humble nature. Once established that T'ani would be the one to connect to nature she began honing her abilities. Every day she would connect to thousands of my kind in a long straight line and try to decipher whispers, miles down the other end. Eventually she knew she was ready and connected herself to the millions of fibrous strands of a giant pumpkin through the neurons on the end of her tentacles." fffffffft.

"Apparently she was in there for days, some say weeks. Honestly, I think she was in there for a few hours, but my ancestors loved to build hype about anything back then." Imagine...hundreds of the most intelligent octopi of the time slugging around a giant pumpkin, waiting for what one Octopus had to think? I better continue...as soon as I finish smoking this Grote.

"T'ani emerged from the giant pumpkin elated with joy. Showing joy for my kind back then was waving all tentacles really fast whilst letting out a ssshhhhhhooooorrrraaaaggghhhhh and then wait for everyone else to connect through Intercon...You know, I've been saying Interconnected Brain Stimulation a lot so far in this story and I'm sick of it, so from now on I'm calling it I.B.S. Cool?" Guessing by your lifeless movement, I'll take that as an okay.

"The excited shrill from T'ani made thousands of octopus around her squish in as one big pile of slime, desperately wanting to connect through I.B.S to share the information she had discovered. What she discovered was a whisper of information from one of nature's children. This whisper was so slight that it would be like trying to hear feather land on water, but if anyone could pick it up it would be her." If celebrities existed T'ani was one of them, being thrown into the spotlight like that and given so much attention...how she kept stable thought is beyond me, "That day was one for the history logs. Billions of my kind shrilled with excitement as they had realized this was the first step to understanding our home planet.