the obliging cephalopod

it was the least he could do. the woman had come all this way. flown from John Wayne to Jakarta International. a six hour layover in Auckland. all that unwieldy gear. a film crew to pay. and they had all descend to his seafloor, aping his nimble motions in their own water-softened gestures. rubber tubing. bubbles. how to appease this expectant tribe. he thought a moment.

a humble busk:

he reached for a pair of coconut shells, improvising a bony skull, and and began to moonwalk on two of his legs, retracting the other six.
“oogali boogali,” he said.
“boh bah boh bah boh bah.”
“voh voh voh voh voh.”
“oxygen, apparatus, bastard, MasterCard.”

while his utterances were lost on the visiting pilgrims, the octopus’ dance appeared well-received, as these turned their masked faces to the left and right, a reverse shower of bubbles erupting from their heads and rising out of sight. and thereafter there was much spirited talk of “tool-use,” “hydrostatic bipedalism,” and a great many other -isms. all parties then went their way for a nice seafood lunch.



related: the snout, trash vortex, synanthropy, quadrupedal and bonnetted turks