Winner

He saw her. He saw her and that was the end of all thought... other than of her. It wasn't that she was beautiful, it was that she was entrancing. He couldn't take his eyes off her.

She moved slowly, peeling herself out of her own skin. A blue wetness fell from her as she did so, glittering on her limbs like droplets of ice. As one drop rolled between her breasts he realized it was her blood. Her skin, he could see, was tinted blue. A blackish substance dripped from the tentacles she was stripping herself from.

Suddenly she stopped, struggling to get the skin off her hands and feet. She strained for a few moments before stopping and going completely still. She looked down, a single blue tear falling from her eye and down her cheek. The sun reflected around her, making a soft luminescent glow envelope her, and in that instance he needed to help her. To set her free from her scales, from her binds.

Slowly, he crept to her. She was so engrossed in her sadness that she didn't notice him until he was only a few paces away. When she glanced up, it was with a look of pure terror. He continued forward, slowly, until he reached out and softly grabbed one of the tentacles. Upon the touch, she jumped, startled, and flung herself away from him, dragging herself until she was in the ocean, her skin trailing with her. He watched her go.

cecilia evoy

The Octopus Mom

Dylan winced as her newborn latched onto the cracked nipple of her breast. She would have offered her other breast but this one was engorged. She was nursing her baby girl on her bathroom floor. Her two-year old daughter, Katie, sat on the potty next to her. It was 4 a.m. Dylan was desperate for sleep.

“Are you done yet, sweetie?”

Katie stood up and turned around to face her potty. Her purple panties were still around her ankles. “No pee yet, Mommy.” She sat down and undressed her baby doll.

Her son, Nate, stumbled into the bathroom. He needed to pee, too. Dylan felt closed in by all these little bodies vying for attention. She inched her way to the wall as her five-year old son relieved himself into the toilet.

“Mom, my pants are wet. Can you pull them off?”

She unlatched the sluggish newborn from her breast and freed her son from his wet pants and underwear. Her cell phone vibrated from inside her housecoat pocket. It was her husband, Dave, saying he’d be working overtime. She told him she couldn’t handle much more. Fractured she was like an octopus being stretched and tentacles torn from its body. A mother pulled in too many directions.

Dylan watched as Katie gently lifted up her nightgown for her doll to nurse. Her daughter then quivered slightly and began to pee. Tears brimmed in Dylan’s eyes as she glimpsed the future. Someday both her girls would have octopus arms, too.

Bonnie Gauthier

Breaking Free

Twenty five thousand is big money. Collection agents send court orders and lien notifications. They suck my blood and drain my soul like an evil octopus. Their job is loathsome. I cannot name a more disgusting one. Even parking enforcement is better.

My friends didn’t help, but I am not judging. Mason owes me, but his money is not enough. I went to banks, tried to sell my car and jewellery. I cannot rob and steal. I am trapped. This is so stressful. Bad pain makes it hard to breathe.

It is so exhausting to be me. I suck. Actually, I am done. I put the chair under the chandelier and climb on it. I will push the chair away and solve all the problems. I get off the chair, move it aside and open the wardrobe. I need to find a rope. My silk scarf is the best. The chest pain is unbearable. I fall on the floor and die.

The funeral is beautiful. My friends cry. If they had helped, I could still be alive. During the reception Mason finds his promissory letter in my desk drawer. He destroys it into tiny pieces and puts into the garbage bin in the kitchen. He pretends to be upset, but I know he is totally triumphant.

No one has ever suspected that before the heart attack I tried the chair and was looking for my silk scarf in the wardrobe. So, the insurance company will pay.

by Farida Samerkhanova

*There are 289 species of octopus. I can, and will, name them all during the act of love. M, 58.*

* *London Review of Books: Personals (November 5, 2009)

* * *

Dear cephalopod enthusiast,

If there are 289 species of octopus why can no one decide if they are called octopuses or octopi? In primary school they taught us that more than one octopus is an exception to the add-an-s rule – dogs, cats, horses, rabbits –and it was that tiny leap of grammar that seduced me. Years later I was arguing with a friend over which pluralization was correct and it turned out that both are acceptable. Still it seems so wrong to strip the eight-armed beast of its syntactical distinction. To deny the thing that made it so tantalizing and impossible to grasp.

There are 289 species of octopi. I can, and will, love you.

by Suzanne Sutherland