“What’s wrong with m’ fingers? Can’t feel the controls,” she observed. “This idn’t gonna work, Oxer. Lemme jus’ take a nap first. G’night.”
Oscar the octopus knew nothing of docosahexaenoic acid or what animal bodies did with it. He did know the other animals in his tiny world were generally boring. All except one, that is. The interesting one would come and visit for a few hours, but always left before he could really learn about it. And that one never came to his part of the world. There was always some kind of barrier between them. From watching the way the interesting one moved around, he had concluded the water was much less viscous on the other side of the barrier, like the bubbles he collected.
He had learned to watch through the other barriers so he would know when the interesting one would come. He liked the noises it made, rich in texture and repeated in ever-varying ways. He had learned to attach meaning to the different noises. Some referred to the other creatures in his world. Others meant the interesting one was going to do something to the strange hard-shelled fish that swam in straight lines and generally avoided everyone else. And one noise, a very special noise he loved to hear, seemed to mean the interesting one had directed its attention just toward him. None of the other creatures in Oscar’s world ever did that.
He especially liked to watch the interesting one manipulate things with its strange, hard tentacles. The creature’s body was all out of proportion—beak misplaced, small tentacles branching off big thick ones, and even smaller tentacles branching from even thicker ones. The stubby little things seemed to be worthless to it, like those lumps on its long body. It could not possibly hold anything with those lumps; they just bounced around and got in the way. Those stringy, lifeless tentacles on its head were the strangest. Usually the creature kept them tied up out of the way. Oscar tried to show the creature that he knew about such things by knotting those nasty stringies the jellyfish trailed around. Maybe if the creature saw that Oscar was interesting, too, it would stay longer. Maybe it would teach him more noises. But he could never get the point across. He had resigned himself to a life of boredom, learning what he could by playing with the other animals in his world, and gazing through the little barrier that showed him the world beyond his.
Then the big barrier broke. He was terrified and he hurt, but suddenly there was a whole new world to explore. He found the noisy places where the world beyond was stealing his water. That made sense. There was no water in the world beyond. The interesting one always put on a portable cave before going into that world. But now maybe the world beyond would fill with water and he could go there. He tried to get through one of the little holes, but it was far too small. Something in the world beyond bit off the tip of his tentacle. So he played a joke on the world beyond. He stuffed jellyfish into the holes it had made and stopped the flow of water.
The interesting one usually visited when something interesting happened. Oscar saw it coming in its portable cave. But it made the wrong noises this time, loud noises with bad melody. It was a long time before he overcame his fear of the interesting one’s strange new behavior. Eventually, though, it let him touch it. It was warm, good to touch, and more interesting than ever before. It showed him things, and he helped it pick out creatures from his world. He even gave it some of his favorites, so it would know how much he appreciated the attention he was getting.
But then the interesting one was getting ready to leave. Oscar wanted to go with it, to see the world beyond, finally, it consented to let him go in its portable cave. Sometimes it was scary, but he trusted the interesting one. He watched its every move, trying to learn how the interesting one manipulated the world beyond.
Now, after a long, exciting day, Oscar was faced with a conundrum. The interesting one had again stopped telling him about things, and there were indeed very interesting things to explore. The world was spinning around them. Every few seconds something very large would go past. And on that large thing, waving its stubby tentacles, he saw the interesting one wearing its portable cave. The interesting one could not be in two places at the same time, so he concluded this must be yet another interesting one. There might be even more of them! Maybe even as many interesting ones as there were fingerling fish!
But Oscar’s interesting one was not doing anything. Maybe it was waiting for him to do it now. It had shown him how to gather fish in tiny portable caves, and then let him do this by himself. He wanted to go to the large thing and see the other interesting one, and if he understood the noises his interesting one had made, that is what it wanted, too.
Tentatively, Oscar reached for one of the little joysticks, the one he had seen Jeanette use to stop the world from spinning. He touched it, and then looked at her. She did not brush his tentacle away, did not make protest noises, did not even expose her eyes. He pushed the stick. The world continued to spin, but in a different direction. He pushed the stick the other way, and the world slowed down. By trial and error, he learned to stop the world, and then to move it to where he wanted it to be. He looked to Jeanette for comment, but received no response.
He could see the other suited figure, but now he was even farther away from it. Jeanette had used the other stick to move things closer, so Oscar mimicked her. The other figure was coming closer now, but the world started spinning again. It took two tentacles to keep it all in balance.
Oscar was really beginning to enjoy himself when the other figure reached out for him, and suddenly he could no longer control the world around him. The next few minutes of his life were too strange to think about; he just let the wonders unfold around him and tried to take it all in without trying to analyze it.
Someone was operating some kind of machine, very close to her ear. Jeanette blinked to clear her eyes. No, it was Duke, snoring. He was lying with his mouth agape and head lolled over the back of his chair, feet propped up on a footstool. Normally Duke was clean-shaven, but now he sported a good start at a beard. She stared at him for a while, thinking he looked cute like that.
“He’s been here since he brought you in.” Jeanette slowly rolled over to face the speaker and saw Beverly, framed in the side rail of her hospital bed. She was dressed in her working duds, a practical one-piece shorts outfit in light green. Her makeup looked fresh. “It’s about time you woke up. Maybe now he’ll go back to work, so I won’t have to keep reassuring Leroy he’s not going to go bankrupt while his best technician moons over his girlfriend.”
“But I’m not—”
“Ha! So you think.”
Jeanette decided to change the subject. “How long have I been here?”
“It’ll be three weeks tomorrow. You’ve been out of it most of the time. Gonna stay awake now?”
“Yeah, I think so. But three weeks! I’d better start calling my customers!” Jeanette started to sit up, and discovered she was wired into the bed by a serpentine array of tubes and wires. Sitting up made her feel dizzy.
“Hold it sister!” Beverly said. “Just lie back and relax. You’re going to be with us for a while. If you need to call someone, use the phone by your bed; but you’ll find it’s all taken care of. All the other independents are pitching in to keep your laboratories going while you’re laid up.”
“Oh no! I’ll lose my contracts!” She tried to get up again. The dizziness was worse this time.
“Jeanette, when are you going to learn to trust people? Your friends won’t jump your contracts, and won’t let the corporations move in. Most of them would have done it for free if I hadn’t insisted they hit you up for expenses.”