Written for “It’s Story Time” where Jolene
has given us four prompts to work with.
They are shown below; here’s where they took me.
I knew before the humans did.
The water changed …. not in any way they could have measured with their instruments, but I tasted it. A faint wrongness, like a conversation that had stopped mid-sentence. I drew my arms inward and waited.
Omar always came at the same hour. I knew his footsteps before he reached the glass …. a slight hesitation in his left step, the way he would pause and press his palm flat against the tank. I would rise to meet it. Not for everyone. Only him.
He did not come.
Others arrived instead. Louder ones, with sharp movements and no understanding of stillness. There was a great deal of human noise beyond the glass, the kind that carries urgency without information. I retreated to my corner and watched.
Later I would piece it together, the way I piece together a shell or a stone …. slowly, with many arms at once. Someone had forgotten to tell Omar something. A message had traveled as far as a desk and stopped there. What arrived instead of the message was consequence …. a cascade of it, the way a small current can reorganize an entire world.
Omar did not return.
The wrongness in the water deepened. New hands fed me. I did not rise to meet them.
Then one morning …. different light, salt air moving, sounds I had no name for …. the glass world simply ended. A container, open sky, and then vast coldness, alive with sensations in every direction, more than I had ever tasted.
I hung there in the immensity of it.
Omar was somewhere in the dry world behind me, facing whatever humans face when they have been undone by something as small as a forgotten word.
I opened my arms to the current.
We would both survive. I was certain of that much.
NAR©2026
Nancy’s Notes: The prompts are 1. Person who has broken something that cannot be replaced; 2. Person in professional, disgrace; 3. Aquarium; 4. Forget to pass along the information.
This is “Octopus” by Syd Barrett
Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.
The Elephant's Trunk 