Poor Mother Of Many

It's a curse, that we all have to end this way.

I sigh, and wrap my arms around my children as they sleep. Caressing them silently, I close my eyes and remember what life was like before...

***

The local fish restaurant is packed, but they manage to fit me in, despite my lack of a reservation – my kind are so solitary and secretive that our appearance apparently warrants VIP service. It's the first I've seen of this kind of treatment, but it's not as if I would turn it down, is it?

They escort me to a table behind a pillar of kelp (one of many that support the rocky ceiling), so the other customers won't gawk at me. Or at least, so I won't see them gawking – a customer like me is too good an opportunity for advertisement for them to miss. Whatever the reason, I'm glad of my hidden table – stares (and a fair share of glares) often make me too uncomfortable to eat.

Speaking of uncomfortable, these seats are the devil. I appreciate the effort the management give to setting the right mood, with decorative seaweed hanging off the rough walls and seagrass drooping from the ceiling, but I draw the line at bleached coral chairs. Uncomfortable, tacky, and inhumane to boot.

“Hello sister,” a voice says, and I look up. Another one of my kind!

He sits down opposite me, and smiles apologetically. “It's the only table behind a pillar,” he explains.

“Oh no, it's fine. Glad you came,” I say eagerly, desperate for company.

“Exc-cuse me.” I turn. A waiter (to clarify, not one of my kind) is beside me, shivering. I try to smile disarmingly at him, forgetting that other kinds can't read our expressions. He pales, and stutters, “Y-your order, sir?”

Ignoring the gender mistake (other kinds can't tell the difference between girls and boys either), I soften my voice as much as I can and try to project reassurance. “Don't worry, I'm a vegetarian,” I assure him. “I'll just have a seaweed side, please. You?” I turn to my brother (we could be related, for all we know. Solitary and secretive, remember?)

He shakes his head. “Not for me, thank you. Also, would you mind if I close my eyes while you eat?” I look at him quizzically. “I'm on a seefood diet.” We laugh as the waiter moves away.

“My name's Quinn.” He reaches out an arm for me to take (I presume it's custom, and anyway, he knows what he's doing. At least, he looks like he knows what he's doing.)

“Wanda,” I reply, going red. I need to learn to control it; I shouldn't colour up whenever someone talks to me.

“How are your parents?” He asks absent-mindedly. I tilt my head in confusion.

“Dead, of course. Aren't they all?”

He goes red, and mumbles a nondescript sound as if he doesn't to answer.

“Mine aren't,” he says eventually, his words rushing out in a waterfall. “I mean, I don't think they're dead, at least my mother isn't but I'm not really sure – this is a big place, how many of us have you seen here so far? I suppose you frequent this establishment?”

I smile at his awkwardly pretentious last sentence and the obvious attempt to draw my attention away from his parents, but let myself be distracted anyway. He doesn't want me know, then I don't to know – faulty logic, but still logic. “What do you mean by 'us'?”

“You know. Us. Men.” Not our kind in general, then.

I look around - a useless thing to do, obviously; I happened to have forgotten the giant kelp pillar that blocks our view of the restaurant.

“Have you had any marriage proposals yet?” He continues. I turn away, suddenly finding the pillar fascinating. I should've been expecting this – I've repeated 'solitary and secretive' so many times, I should've realised that it drags the chances of a choice in men down to almost zero. And anyway, there's the ever-present shadow of what I'd have to do after marriage -

My thoughts slow down to half speed, then stop entirely. I study Quinn through the corner of my eye. Do I need a choice in men?

“I haven't seen anyone,” I say slowly. I can feel his smile without looking at it.

He swims me home that night, and we race like children until we realise he doesn't know where I live. We find it eventually, after many dead ends and confused colour-changes, and he proposes at the mouth of the cave. What answers him is a spurt of excited ink, and a very red bride-to-be.

***

I cradle my eggs and wish that I could go back to that time. But then, I was doomed to this fate from the moment I said 'I do'.

***

“I do.” I smile at Quinn, my colours changing to stripes of red and white with yellow dots. I look more like an American flag than a beautiful bride, but he gives me the compliment anyway. After all, octopi only marry once.

He wraps his eight arms around me to shelter me from nosy onlookers. Chivalry isn't dead yet.

I snuggle closer to him, absorbing his warmth. Then I freeze, and look up at him. There's something we've pushed away in the frenzy of a next-day marriage. Something that needs to be discussed.

He must've felt me stiffen, because he looks down with an attempt at a reassuring smile. “What is it, Dot?” I can't help smiling at the nickname – he's called me that since I exploded into colourful spots yesterday on the way home.

I'll have to tell him straight up; I've never been good at beating around the bush, or softening things. He must know, but we'd both forgotten.

“I'll have to eat you,” I say, suppressing an inappropriately-timed smile. There's something about the words that seem almost comical, despite the situation. Our situation. My expression hardens.

That was two days ago, and I haven't spoken since. Quinn must worry about me, but he seems to understand, being silent himself, somehow understanding that I need this quiet time. I need to get my thoughts together.

I open my mouth to reassure him that I'm fine, but five entirely different words come out – a repetition of two days ago.

“I'll have to eat you.” The words are sour in my mouth, and I want to spit them out, get rid of them, never have to face them again. But they're stuck to me like a sea lamprey, and I can't hide from them.

Quinn doesn't speak, manoeuvring me to the corner of my cave – our cave – before sitting me down and facing me. “It's okay,” he says. I start shaking my head, but he reaches out two of his arms gently and hold me still so he can look into my eyes. “We don't have to.”

I stare at him. “We do, we do.” Is he mad? How can he deny something that our kind has done for centuries just so... so we can live. “What do we do?” I whisper.

Silently, he stands up, and walks to the mouth of the cave. He looks back once, and I can see his answer in his eyes. I cry out, but he's already gone.

***

I've run over that day so often in my head, wondering if it could've gone any different. How could the best day of my life have also been the worst?

Slowly, I release my grip on my eggs. Is this what Quinn wanted to do?

***

I don't move from my cave for the next few days – I can't. I have eggs to look after now, my babies that need to be protected. I smile sadly at the remembrance of care-free days when I only had myself to look after. They were only last week, but they seem like a dream.

I hug my eggs to me, unable to shake the feeling that whatever Quinn wants me to do is related to the little treasures. It's the circle of nature that says I had to eat him, to keep my strength for the larva to hatch. They need constant protection. I shudder at the thought of leaving them for a moment, but what else can I do; with Quinn gone, I've lost not only my husband, my best friend – but my food.

I wince. I can't, I can't think like that.

***

I have to think like that. How can I survive? There's only two options: Stay and die and have the eggs die with you, or leave your eggs to hunt for...

Or leave your eggs. Why can't I just leave? Then I can find Quinn, and I'll live, and we can live. Together.

I hold my eggs at arm's length, then gently rest them on the side of the cave, and take a step back – then quickly pick them up again and wrap my arms around them. I can't. It hurts. I can't leave my eggs. Who would protect them?

This is an ideal cave for another octopus – they'll find them and look after them, of course they will. Don't I want to survive?

Of course I want to survive, but -

Don't I want to find Quinn?

Of course I want to find Quinn, but -

Stop. Just stop.

I'll get more attached to them the older they get, then I won't be able to leave at all and I'll die, and never find Quinn. I need to do it for him – what if he finds someone else? He wants to live to, or never would've... never would've left.

I let go of my eggs and watch them float to the cave floor, suppressing the pain I feel even an inch away from them. I step backwards, closing my eyes.

I can't bear it any more – I pick myself off and jet away, swimming and swimming until I can't see my cave. I breath a sigh of relief. It still hurts, but maybe I can learn to ignore it. My babies will live, and so will I.

***

I wriggle in the bleached coral chair and stare at the now-familiar kelp pillar beside me. Waiting. Eventually, the waiters will shepherd another of my kind to this table, and we can talk, and get to know each other – females of my kind don't come out of their caves once they've married, so he'll presume I'm not... And I can eat and leave.