THE GROOMDA FILES: Part MORE (yeah, more GROOMDA) (pt. 4)

Part MORE (yeah, more GROOMDA)

by Aubrey Lysander

Memory of a stupor.

Just type what you can recall. Already everything is fading.

The tentacle lulls me into a trance. A faint resemblance to the riff of “Stellar” by Incubus and what I imagine Odysseus heard from The Sirens of Space Greek Moon Mythology. The memory of the melody is almost enough to knock me out again. Fight it, Aubrey. Recount the vision.

A vast ocean with no land in sight. A sky lit by constant crashes of lightning and a few muted moons emanating mustard glow. The sea seems wine dark but as I become accustomed to the space it appears more…purple. I see. What I thought to be water is tentacles. A vast, endless sea of squirming, slopping, slithering tentacles.

I look out in every direction, desperate for ground. Nothing but tentacles. I begin to observe the many currents of tentacles, like schools of fish that have muscled out every drop of water between them. Hundreds and thousands of tentacles share a momentum that eddies with and around the movement of cooperating schools. I wonder if this is what it looks like to observe a human brain (assuming you did some kinda shrink ray thing).

An eruption. A geyser of tentacles exploding into the air(?). I hold up an arm to protect myself from the falling spray but nothing drops. An unbelievable sight: all of the tentacles in the air have grasped on to each other. The airborne tentacles interlock, collect into a form, and are suddenly someone new.  The collection speaks with one voice: “I’m Marshall!” But before I can even say “Hi, Marshall!” the personality falls back onto the ocean. The tentacles disperse back into various paths. Marshall is no more.

I hear another eruption. Then another. Then another.

“I’m Frawrggy!”

“I’m Topher!”

“I’m Gloppo!”

“I’m Beth!”

All achieve independent sentience for but a moment before rejoining the ocean and their schools. Another eruption: “I’m Groomda!”

Groomda’s in the air. He reaches the crest of his ascent. I call his name. He falls. I wait to hear the splash of his death but instead there’s a tentacle on my head. I feel his “knee” bend to push off me like a pogo stick. Groomda flies in the air, “leg” outstretched until finding himself atop of a new eruption. “I’m Brans- uh.” He pushes the new personality down into the ocean before it can even name itself. With new momentum he leaps to another erupted, then another, then another, until he is but a speck in the distance. I drown.