Inky and the Sea Squirt

Inky the squid lay at the bottom of the ocean trench and raised his right eye languorously to the promise of light above. He stretched his two tentacles, flexed his eight arms and considered the merits of consciousness. Remnants of the dream through which he had been drifting clung to the insides of his eye: cold, fathomless nothingness... intermittent flickering images of multitudinous shoals, the undersides of boats, the endless silent traffic of oceanic life. Realising that the dream was no different to reality, he expelled a single pulse of water through his siphon, moved upwards a few feet and nudged his ponderous mind into consciousness.

Inky the squid drifted. Occasionally a soft-bodied creature moved within range of his tentacles - he snatched it out of the water, ripped it apart with his beak and ingested its flesh. He was a squid, and he consumed without thought or reason, while his unchallenged mind focused on higher things. Higher, lighter, more meaningful things. He did not like the dark, but he was permanently immersed in it. He was a morose, melancholic squid. He craved the sun, the lightness of air, the company of other squids. Being a Giant Squid, however, his kind were few and far between. He found it supremely ironic that many did not even believe in his existence.

A single sea squirt detached itself from a rock and floated towards him. It did not look appetising. It was so tiny that he would not have noticed it if it hadn't decided to try and attach itself to his eye. With a flick of a tentacle, Inky rolled to one side, but the sea squirt was insistent. It would have him! It was a minute, insignificant creature, but to the sea squirt, Inky was not a colossal, terrifying monster of the sea, but merely another surface to cling to and parasitically gorge upon. It was an annoyance to Inky. It moved towards Inky's eye again. Inky flicked and rolled. The sea squirt persisted.

No, it did not look appetising, but he was afraid that if he ate it, it would cling to the wall of his guts and eat him from the inside. That would be inconvenient. Little blighter. Why couldn't it go and annoy some rocks or a whale or something? Inky had better things to think about than how to fend off the tiniest and most tediously unattractive creature of the ocean. Such as whether the momentary excitement of making his presence known to humans, bringing down a yacht or two, having a couple of decent square meals of human flesh, would be worth the proceeding lifelong fear of being hunted.

Go! Away! thought Inky (but was unfortunately unable to say to the sea squirt, due to not having the appropriate mouthparts).

The sea squirt found his eye. It clung. It attached itself. It gorged. There was nothing Inky could do about it. His tentacles could not bend in such a way that he could knock the thing off. He resigned himself to his fate. Soon he would be half-blind. A half-blind, bored, lonely, forty-foot Giant Squid.

Inky the squid drifted. Occasionally a soft-bodied creature moved within range of his tentacles - he snatched it out of the water, ripped it apart with his beak and ingested its flesh. He was a squid, and he consumed without thought or reason, while his unchallenged mind focused on higher things. Occasionally he slept. He dreamed of the undersides of boats. He pushed himself through the water, towards the boats. In the dreams, being hunted no longer held any fear for him. When he woke, he felt hungry.

[ the end ]