You'd think by now Life would have gotten bored with me. Sadly, not the case. Everywhere I went, it was always penguins.
Destination 7: Japan, Tokyo Sea Life Park. It was the first place I was shipped off to after being caught in New York. And, per the norm, I was stationed across the penguin habitat. I was shipped off shortly thereafter. Something about me glaring menacingly at the innocent penguins. Innocent my nonexistent foot.
Destination 8: Greece, Attica Zoological Park (in Athens). By this point, I had become exhausted from the anger. I thought maybe since I wasn't too close to the penguin habitat that I would at least be safe from that – maybe the cycle had finally broken. But nope. There was a literal human in a penguin mascot costume that made his way around the zoo every day, passing my habitat at least two or three times each day, directing people to go check out the cute penguins. Ugh. After being too boring since, in my depression, all I did was lay motionless at the bottom of my habitat, I got transferred pretty quickly.
Destination 9: France, L'Aquarium de Paris. My habitat was on the other end of the hall of the penguin habitat here. One day, the keepers held a "pet a penguin" day and carried the penguins up and down the hallway. One of them waved at me at one point and I lost it, banging the glass of my habitat. I was deemed too hostile and transferred the next day.
And that's just how it goes. Hounded out by everyone! Met with hatred everywhere! No kind word from anyone! No compassion anywhere!
I just don't understand how it's always penguins. Somehow, some way, it's always penguins that end up taking away any chance I may have had at having the spotlight. I honestly don't even know how that works. There have been a few times that I allow myself to have a little hope that things will be getting better soon, but they're always cast asunder.
To think I traveled halfway 'round the world for four of them. For nothing.
But this can't be it, right? I mean, sure it's happened ten times in a row, but there has to be some kind of silver lining to this, right? There has to be somewhere that I can be accepted. Someone has to be able to tell that I'm not a bad guy. I know I'm not cute. I know I'm not the coolest thing ever. I know I'm just plain old . . . me. Is that really all that bad? Can't someone see me for the ordinary octopus I am instead of some . . . beast?
No. I'm just fooling myself. They'll never see me as anything but a monster.
— § —
Penguins are a disease, a cancer of this planet.
So, for a while now I haven't been exactly sure what the date was. I had a good guess, but with so much traveling and time zones and sleepless nights, I could never pinpoint the exact date. The only reason I know now is because, lo and behold, I had returned to the United States.
The Baton Rouge Zoo. That's right, Baton Rouge, Louisiana's second-largest city.
It wasn't going so bad until the next New Year's celebration. I had first left New York around New Year's, so it'd been a full year since I'd left Central Park the first time. The penguins probably weren't so little or fluffy anymore.
No. I am not going to think about them right now. They were the only penguins on this planet that I didn't harbor any hatred toward. Or . . . tried not to. They were the only exception to the global cancer. I didn't want to think about them and find a reason to hate them too. They were the last beings that I had faith in — the last beings that might still care about me. I needed that faith. It was the only thing that kept me going — the prospect of seeing them again. A heartfelt reunion.
Back to the other, less likable penguins.
Honestly, I wasn't having too many problems in Baton Rouge. Sure, I was being ignored again due to the penguin habitat across from mine (how did that always work out like that?), but otherwise, it seemed no one had a problem with me otherwise. Then, the New Year's Day celebrations started.
The zoo was closed. It was about five, three hours earlier than on our regular days. No one was around. It remains a mystery to me to this day on exactly how the penguins obtained any fireworks, but how they got them doesn't really matter. It's what happened when they tried to use them.
All I remember is this. In Baton Rouge, I had one of those tanks that had two walls on either side, and two windows to make up the other two walls. Through one window was indoors, where other invertebrates' tanks were. Through the other was the outside, which had a nice awning to shade me from the sunlight. Through the window looking outside, I could see the penguin habitat, which was open, rather than enclosed. I was sulking in my tank when I happened to notice the penguins bringing out the fireworks.
At first, it was okay. I was still freaking out inside, but I had started to relax when nothing seemed to be going wrong.
Then things went wrong.
One of the penguins lit the fuse to the fireworks, but the surface the tube was sitting on must not have been level, because shortly after the penguin ran for cover, it fell over.
It was pointed at me.
Luckily, one of the penguins lunged forward and grabbed the closed end of the tube, making it angled a little higher, but he couldn't get it aimed for the sky quick enough and it fired.
I blacked out for . . . well, I'm not sure how long. It couldn't have been too long, though, because when I woke up, it was still nighttime and the fire department had just arrived. I was outside, sprawled atop a pile of rubble and glass. My eardrums rang and everything around me looked fuzzy. I looked around and made out small shapes cowering in the distance, which I quickly realized were the penguins. I saw humans wearing thick jackets and helmets coming toward me. Some had a long hose, which they aimed toward what had been my habitat. Two knelt by my side and brushed some of the rubble off of me. One of them picked up one of my arms and grabbed a blackened tube that was laying underneath it.
"Fireworks?" one observed, rubbing his chin.
"How did an octopus end up with fireworks?" the other asked, wiping sweat from her brow.
"I hear they're really smart," the other replied. "Pretty ironic that such a smart creature could do something so dumb."
"But in an enclosed tank?" the woman thought aloud. "It doesn't seem right."
The man shrugged. "Well, security footage doesn't show anybody breaking in. Who else could've done it? Penguins?" The man started laughing in absurdity.
"The footage doesn't show an octopus sneaking around, either," the woman pointed out. "The rest of it was destroyed, though, so who knows."
"Yeah, but they can camouflage themselves. It makes perfect sense that the octopus did it. Unseen, unthought of," the man insisted.
The woman looked doubtful. "I guess so. Poor guy. He looks weak," she said, tenderly rubbing one of my arms.
"Well, yeah," the man said sarcastically. "He nearly blew himself up. Come on. We're gonna have to transfer him to another zoo while they do repairs. Though I doubt they'll want him back."
The two stood and gently gathered my limp body up into their arms, and I was too tired and sore to object.
"Yeah, I don't know if this zoo will even want him anymore, knowing he's prone to escaping and stealing explosives," the woman said as they carried me away.
"Eh," the man said, shrugging, "he's an octopus. He won't know the difference between this zoo or the next."
That was the last thing I heard before I blacked out again, and in my last thought, I couldn't help but reflect on how right the man was.
— § —
San Diego. Brazil. Nairobi. Osaka. Madrid. London. Tokyo. Athens. Paris. Baton Rouge. Toronto. Guadalajara. Düsseldorf. Bangalore. Amsterdam. Lisbon. Rio de Janeiro.
And at this point I'm done explaining what happened at each zoo. You get the idea. Ugly octopus, cute penguins, bye bye Dave.
I keep replaying everything that's happened to me, everything I've seen, everywhere I've been throughout the past year in my head over and over again. There's never a break in the pattern. Penguins this, penguins that. I don't get many visitors no matter where I go.
No, wait, here's one.
I lunged forward and hit the glass with my arm balled in a fist-like shape. "Go ahead!" I shouted angrily. "Feast your eyes! Glut your soul and my accursed ugliness!"
She ran away, claiming that there was no octopus in that tank, but some monster out for blood.
Was it something I said?
I told you they hated me.
Shanghai. Vienna. Sydney. Dublin. Moscow. Berlin.
No matter where I went, it was the same thing! Literally the same thing! I was tired of letting myself have the smallest shred of hope only to have it stripped from me yet again! I was done believing. I had nothing left to believe in. I was almost afraid to let myself believe I'd see my fluffballs again, but I just had to let myself believe in just this one last thing. If that fell through, I promised myself that I wouldn't believe in anything ever again.
So, that's it then! Down once more to the dungeon of my black despair! Down we plunge to the prison of my mind! Down that path into darkness deep as Hell! Why, you ask, was I bound and chained in this cold and dismal place? Not for any mortal sin, but the wickedness of my abhorrent face!
I'm just . . . done.
I didn't even care where I was going next. I hadn't cared since Baton Rouge. We'd been flying for maybe six or seven hours. We could've been flying over the Atlantic for all I knew. Or the stan nations. Or maybe even Africa. Who knew? More importantly, who cared? It's not like I'd be there long, anyways.
A few boring hours later, we landed. I was carted out of the plane. I absentmindedly looked around at my new city. There were some buildings that loomed up to the sky in the distance. There were people bustling around everywhere. I arched an eyebrow as things started to look familiar. This place sure attracted a lot of American tourists.
I narrowed my eyes. These weren't American tourists.
These were Americans.
As in, this was America. No, not just America . . . My jaw dropped and my breath caught as realization smacked me in the face.
After so many months of country-hopping, I was finally home again.
— § —
I wasn't sure how long it took me to realize I'd stopped breathing.
I was home. As in, my real home. I was in New York. Was this really happening, or had I started hallucinating again?
I thumped my head a couple times on the glass of my tank and slapped my face a few times. Then I looked back up at the looming skyscrapers, the heavy traffic in the distance, the busy New Yorkers. I listened to the sound of people on their cell phones, the sirens and horns in the distance, the airplanes descending to and ascending from the airport somewhere behind me.
If I hadn't been in a tank filled with water, you would've been able to see the tears welling in my eyes.
It was frustrating. I was looking out at my beautiful city, but I was confined to this blasted glass box. I just wanted to reach out and grasp it. I wanted to climb to the tallest building and look out over the city lights, the pigeons and doves soaring over the buildings, the cars like tiny ants with headlights moving through traffic below. For once, I actually wanted to breathe in the familiar smell of smog in the air. I wanted to feel the wind whip past my face as I hitched a ride atop a city bus.
But more than anything, I wanted to see my fluffballs again. They had to be grown by now. I was saddened by how much of their lives I'd missed, by how many milestones I had to have missed. I wasn't even sure how long it had been. It had to have been a few years at the least. I'd been to at least several dozen zoos since . . .
Then my hearts dropped. I remembered when I discovered that my penguins were missing. Lost somewhere off the coast of Africa. I would never see them again.
I took a deep breath. No. Out of all the hopes and dreams that have crashed and burned this past year, this would not be one of them. Life wasn't going to take this away from me too. He couldn't take away my fluffballs. He couldn't have them. They were mine. We were a family. We are a family. We were going to be reunited. I would be happy again. I would never leave them again.
I smiled again. It felt as if I'd never before smiled in my life. I could almost taste it. The freedom. The love. Then I rested my head against the glass, feeling the cold of the night penetrating it as peace washed over me. I pictured the penguins' faces in my head again, still crisp in my mind. They would look different when I saw them again, but that was okay. I just wanted to hold them again. I wanted to swim next to them. I wanted to have fun with them in the city.
I sighed. There's no place like home.
— § —
Note: The quotes in this chapter were: "Hounded out by everyone! Met with hatred everywhere! No kind word from anyone! No compassion anywhere!" & "Feast your eyes! Glut your soul and my accursed ugliness!" & "Down once more to the dungeon of my black despair! Down we plunge to the prison of my mind! Down that path into darkness deep as Hell! Why, you ask, was I bound and chained in this cold and dismal place? Not for any mortal sin, but the wickedness of my abhorrent face!" all said by Erik/The Phantom in Phantom of the Opera (1925); "I'm just fooling myself. She'll never see me as anything but a monster," said by The Beast (portrayed by Robby Benson) in Beauty and the Beast (1991, "she'll" replaced with "they'll" for obvious reasons); and "Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet," said by Agent Smith (portrayed by Hugo Weaving) in The Matrix (1999, "human beings" replaced with "penguins"); "There's no place like home," spoken by Dorothy (portrayed by Judy Garland) in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
I've had car trouble this week, so sorry for the delay in getting the last chapter out. To make up for it, here's the next chapter a day early.
Next chapter will be posted on September 22nd, 2023.
