THE GROOMDA FILES: Part Spacethree (pt. 3)

Part SpaceThree

by Aubrey Lysander

I have one of Groomda’s tentacles.

It’s about two feet long. Four inch circumference in the middle with each end diminishing into a classic tentacle point. Purple, slimy skin with  a lavender “suction cup area” at the bottom. And boy does it have a personality.

Mostly the tentacle acts like a Terran Cat. It naps; it zoomies; it leaps from surface to surface as if on a mission of discovery.  It’s alternatively affectionate and annoyingly spirited. Sometimes it gets into such adorable situations that you think your heart might burst from how cute the little scamp can be. So, like I said, kinda like a Terran Cat or at least a Sythermic Toad.

There are also times when the tentacle is more akin to some Frankenstein fusion of a mousetrap and a fridge. For a while I had noticed its habit of lying prostrate, suction cups to the sky, as I cooked in the kitchen. I had assumed that the tentacle, like the Sythermic Toad, was merely begging for scraps of food. Though I had never seen the tentacle consume any kind of sustenance, I admit that I had grown so accustomed to its pet adjacent behavior that I wrote off its “begging” as a heartwarming affectation. But that was before I dropped the trimmed zucchini.

I had just cut off the ends of the vegetable. To half it long ways (before slicing it into quarter inch half moons), I propped the zucchini vertically to chop straight down. It was here my geometry failed me as I poured all my body weight into nicking the top corner, squeezing the vegetable to the ground. It was here that the tentacle sprung into action. It snapped up like a Terran Bear Trap (or Sythermic Terran Cock Trap), clasping itself around the plummeting zucchini. I stepped back, awaiting what was sure to be a miraculous digestion. Instead, stillness. A minute later, the tentacle opened itself up, turned over, and scurried under the couch, leaving behind that very same zucchini, frozen solid. With gloves I picked it up and dropped it in the space sink where it shattered into snowflakes.

:::

I have struggled to find words for the tentacle's most confounding feature. Or, at least, the feature that most evades my understanding. Out with it, Aubrey: There are times when the tentacle seems….a music box? A radio? A harp? I’ll start at the beginning.

On the night it first arrived via SpaceFedMoonEx, I was awoken from my sleep by a ringing of unearthly stability, a single tone sustained like a soggy tuning fork. I was held alert by the note, unchanging, even as some form of breathing periodically waxed its volume. Was this snoring? Purring? Some version of echolocation to sonically perceive both the room's physical dimensions and my taste in furniture? As time went on, I was able to observe the tentacle in its song. At first the sound clearly came from the gong-like vibrations of its suction cups. But then there were also times when the vibrations seemed to originate deep within the tentacle’s “flesh,” like an alarm clock under a pillow.

The longer I observe the tentacle, the more it develops its musicianship. While it began with just one steady note, the tentacle now pulsates like a didgeridoo. It rings in the style of a bell with sitar-like wobbles and bends breaking up the tintinnabulation. Today, for the first time, Groomda’s tentacle sang as if a songbird's spring chirping was played on wet marimba.

:::

Something is happening. I had left my desk to make myself a Caffe Latte with Uranus Milk when I heard the tentacle begin a new song. The music continues now as I write. A hum like a color wheel fills the room with interlocking melodies and endless tone. My head is hot. My body seems in a space shuttle pre Normal Gravity filters. I’m getting tired. Something is happening. I must keep writing, keep describing this feeling before I pass out. A pulse runs back and forth through me, as if ocean waves were playing tennis and I am the air above the net. Something is happening. The song blooms over me. The orchestra is trading seats with the audience. A faint hint of inflection that sounds almost a lisp. Something is happening to me.