Upside Down

Upside down, Curly’s arms splayed up and out over her head, the ends of her tentacles spiraling into eight circular buds. She floated patiently as the crowd’s murmurs hummed behind the glass and flashes of light sparked from all directions.

“Oh! I know!” A flicker of movement broke the group’s stillness, a small figure bouncing in the blurry shadow. “Flowers! It’s flowers!”

The recognition settled into the crowd through gasps and appreciative sighs, and ultimately, an applause. Curly untangled her tentacles and swam upright, providing her with a right-side view of cheering faces. Their silhouette reminded Curly of a castle, curvilinear and wave-like, towers and walls. As part of her act, she was supposed to bow, but instead, extended an arm to the left, gesturing toward a sign that read, “No applause, please! Curly startles easily!” Her ink gland had been removed for this reason. That, and it disgusted an ignorant audience. True to their nature, the people mistook Curly’s gesture for another performance feature, and their applause increased into whistles and laughter.

Curly’s trainer, Gwendolyn, managed to quiet them by congratulating the young girl for her quick identification and reminding her to mark her score card for a chance to win free admission to the aquarium for herself and a friend. “Remember, those who can identify just three of Curly’s imitations today get entered into the raffle! But it’s up to you to write them down on your answer sheet and give them to me after the show. Honor system, people! I trust that each of you who submits a card will only do so if their answers were written down before they’ve been revealed.”

Gwendolyn winked and tapped three times on the glass. It was Curly’s cue to transform into her third object. Her head expanded, taking on a bulbous shape, while her arms stretched into a single thin line.

Instantly, someone cried out, “Balloon!”

Attempting to limit the reaction time, Gwendolyn rang the victory bell to indicate a correct answer, but the crowd produced a weaker, slow-clapping response than before. Then, boos and other dissatisfied moans popped across the auditorium.

“Cheap trick!” yelled a man wearing a New Jersey Devils hat.

“Boring!” added a woman with fake nails.

“Do something cooler!” called a teenager in baggy jeans.

“Waste of money!”

“Waste of time!”

“Make it do the floss!”

Show #5 was always like this. Tired. Rowdy. Impatient. It was unfortunate because it was usually Curly’s favorite show. The last one of the day, she was just thirty minutes from being plopped back into her evening tank, a spacious paradise of sand and castle molds and Tux. Curly lived for the nights building sand castles with her mate.

This time, Gwendolyn tapped into her microphone, and a loud, staticky boom-boom-boom echoed through the room. This cue was for someone else, another trainer, signaling them to bring in Curly’s partner, Saltwig. If a show wasn’t going well, Saltwig could save it.

“Now, now. While Curly doesn’t like to dance as much as those Tik Tok-ers, she does enjoy a nice swing at the park!” Gwendolyn said, and in perfect synchronicity, Saltwig splashed beside Curly. Instantly, the octopi linked four tentacles, and Curly became a gymnast doing bar spins over and under Saltwig. Once! Twice! Then three, four, and on five, they disconnected and began chasing each other in a figure eight pattern, spiraling and twirling in a game of tag, their tentacles slick and tail-like behind them. Between the sudden cacophony of noise – the uproarious ovation beyond the glass, Gwendolyn’s sportscasting, and the vibration of water in motion between them – Curly heard her name.

“Curly! Curly!”

Gwendolyn tapped once on the glass, and Saltwig and Curly halted beside each other like ceased soldiers, their arms jutting toward the tank floor like arrows. Two more taps on the glass, and they turned to face each other for tentacle stacking, a form of Rochambeau. Once their last tentacles touched, they were to shape-shift into rock, paper, or scissors. Curly extended an arm first, and when Saltwig gripped hers, he tugged.

“Curly! Listen to me!”

Curly stacked another tentacle. “Thanks for hopping in tonight, Salt! Tough crowd!”

Saltwig linked another arm. “Curly. It’s Tux.”

Purple rippled down Curly’s body, a sudden sensation of warmth at the mention of her mate. “You’re not going to distract me out of a win this time,” she warned.

“Woah! Did you see that?” Gwendolyn responded to the audible awe from the audience. “That means Curly is excited! Don’t worry, dear, we won’t tell your husband!”

Saltwig’s grips furled tighter, pulling Curly just an inch closer. “Tux is gone, Curly. He escaped.”

This time, dark green shot through Curly like a lightning strike, a flicker of something Tux had said weeks ago when they were inspecting their completed sculpture, that there had to be something more beyond the glass. Reflexively, Curly gave another arm. “Not a time for jokes, Saltwig!”

With only a few tentacles left to go, the crowd began chanting: “Rock, paper, scissors! Rock, paper, scissors! Rock, paper, scissors!”

“He said he couldn’t do it anymore,” Saltwig said. “Build sand castles every night when he knew they were out there.”

Curly tugged this time as she slung her final arm up. “Tux wouldn’t leave me.”

“Rock, paper, scissors! Rock, paper, scissors!”

“I’m sorry,” was all Saltwig could say as he wrapped his eighth tentacle around hers, squeezing gently.

The two octopi remained hooked together, frozen and floating in the center of their stage. The audience’s chant began to fade. Even Gwendolyn’s voice tapered off. Anticipation hung in the air as they waited for Curly and Saltwig to detach and take on a new shape. When they didn’t…

“What are they doing?” Fake Nails asked.

“Nothing!” Devils’ Hat hollered.

“So lame!” said Baggy Jeans.

“It’s a heart! They look like a heart!” exclaimed Flower Girl.

Curly’s three hearts felt broken. All she wanted to do was build sand castles. With Tux. Could he possibly leave her?

“I’m sorry,” Saltwig said again.

And then her body turned the darkest black she’d ever emitted, and Curly let go. But she didn’t become a rock, or paper, or anything that resembled scissors. Curly’s body constricted and went limp simultaneously; her head shrunk to its smallest size, but her arms remained long, wafting like lank kelp riding the currents.

Confused mumblings trickled through the audience as they tried to determine what shape Curly had taken. Saltwig, who was just as entranced by Curly’s undecipherable appearance, was forgotten. No one cared that, he, too, had not transformed into rock, paper, or scissors, but was also transfixed by his performance partner’s despair.

“It doesn’t look like anything,” Fake nails sounded annoyed.

“Looks like a plastic bag,” Devil’s Hat said.

“This thing’s dumb,” Baggy Jeans was scrolling on his phone.

“She’s so sad,” Flower Girl said, on the verge of tears.

And so, there was one in the crowd who understood why Curly had begun to hurl tiny chunks of rock at the griping audience whose protests grew louder and harsher the longer Curly’s act delayed. There was an empathic soul out there who knew how she felt being dropped into a sandless tank seventeen minutes later.

“No sand castles tonight,” Gwendolyn said through the glass. “Not after that.”

The next hour consisted of bodies rushing past Curly, frantically searching for her mate. Curly glanced toward the floor drain in the corner. It was how Tux had always envisioned his escape. But without her? That part of the plan had never been mentioned. She hoped he'd find them anyway, and that they were as intricate and majestic as the ones they'd built together.

To her right, on a separate table, Saltwig remained pressed against the side of his isolation tank, hoping to comfort her, to apologize again for something that wasn't his fault. But even still, Curly couldn't look at him. Her eyes were glued on the tank directly across from her: a larger space, a deeper blue; a home for two with six inches of sand lining its bottom where eight large castle molds rested topside down. Curly didn't particularly care that the tank she was in now was fifty gallons smaller than the one she shared with Tux. Or the fact that she would have to perform five more shows tomorrow, knowing Tux would still be gone at the end of them. Or, even, that she was alone. What saddened Curly the most were the empty molds, the shapeless sand, with no one to turn them into castles. Slowly, tentacle by tentacle, Curly crept into the furthest corner of the tank until she could finally see her lonely home no longer upside down.