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What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
— T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
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In the dark pacific waters off the coast of Vancouver there lived a giant octopus named Shane.
He was of the largest octopus species on earth, Enteroctopus Dofleini, and played an important role in maintaining the health and biodiversity of deep sea ecosystems, cognitive research, and the fishing industry. In theory, his species’ range stretches from the Mexican state of Baja California, north along the United States' West Coast (California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska, including the Aleutian Islands), and British Columbia, Canada; across the northern Pacific to the Russian Far East (Kamchatka, Sea of Okhotsk), south to the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea, the Sea of Japan, Japan's Pacific east coast, and around the Korean Peninsula.[3] But Shane very rarely left his burrow.
He had secured a wonderful burrow — it was not cramped, despite his size; in fact it was spacious. It provided a good lookout over a marvellous vista of ocean floor, and was far out of view of the kelp forests, which upset Shane and got tangled in his suckers.
E. dofleini are den dwellers, which serve as a central point from which they forage while also providing protection, shelter, and privacy.[24] After hunting, they bring food back to the den to feed in a safer environment and avoid predators. Such a creature can be found from the intertidal zone down to 2,000 m (6,600 ft), and is best-adapted to colder, oxygen- and nutrient-rich waters.
Shane liked to stay down low where there was little current, and the ocean was placid and empty.
There was nothing much in the way of companionship but clams and squid. Sometimes the gelatinous squids went zooming around in their ink clouds, which delighted him. He never saw another octopus nearby. Whenever he saw one it was thankfully far from his burrow, and he observed it unhappily. Often it observed him back, and Shane did not like that much either. He retracted back into himself, folded at home in his burrow. He was glad there was no-one else there.
Other members of Shane’s species allowed debris and predatory discard to build up around the sites of their burrows. This often lead human divers and other kinds of annoyances to them. Shane had initially started organising his burrow-front debris, until he found that some types of creatures were even more drawn to this and to him because of it. Eventually he began to cart away the debris of his feeding elsewhere, disposing of it in some underwater chasm, an abandoned Precambrian river from which nothing ever seemed to be released. Shane did not like to go near the sinkhole. But it was worth it for his area to be clean.
Nothing bothered him. He went out to hunt. He otherwise stayed in the burrow. He could make himself into any colour he could want there. Nothing could see him recessed in the back of the burrow, and down there nothing could hurt him. Shane’s diet was rich in protein. Shane was not done growing. Shane was far too clever to ever get close to any other octopuses, since he was fairly sure if he did so he would die.
Both male and female giant Pacific octopuses are semelparous, meaning they only go through one breeding cycle in their life. Analysis of egg clutches has shown evidence of polygyny and polyandry in these broods; Shane found this unfathomable, since he had never met even one single other octopus he liked.[40] After mating, this species enters senescence, which involves obvious changes in behaviour and appearance, including a reduced appetite, retraction of skin around the eyes giving them a more pronounced appearance, increased activity in uncoordinated patterns, and white lesions all over the body.[38][33][24] Research has shown that changes related to senescence may begin as early as the onset of reproductive behavior.[41] In early stages of senescence, hyper-sensitivity is noted where individuals overreact to both noxious and non-noxious touch. Death is typically attributed to starvation, as the females have stopped hunting in order to protect their eggs; males often spend more time in the open, making them more likely to be preyed upon.[42] Shane would not be making that mistake.
He liked being alive in this malleable, complex, variegated body, and he did not much care for the idea of breeding. When he saw other octopuses he firmly retreated to his den. He wondered how coupling would work, even — and he was not entirely sure, for there were little if any body gender markers, and one had to get up close to see the modified third arm, but he thought he had found himself more drawn to males of his own species. But perhaps senescence would occur for them, then, too, and they wouldn’t even have any babies. Shane’s mother would have killed him, if only she herself had been alive. No, one could not be too careful. When in doubt, it was best to defend; to defend, it was best to retract.
He was getting older than usual for his species already, now. Shane thought about that with pride. It was him because he was careful. Because he had made his burrow down low. He sat in it quietly and filtered oxygen from the water through his two fibrillating gills, and his blue blood pumped around his body via his three hearts, and he was alone and filled with satisfaction.
Sometimes he saw whales pass above him. Sometimes he saw movement down below. Sometimes he saw crayfish, and he ate them. Sometimes he saw sharks circling around above as well. He saw them even moreso while he was out at work and hunting; they were hunting too. But Shane was never worried about that.
Shane was the most intelligent and successful predator the mesopelagic zone outside British Columbia had ever seen. Shane’s kind had been around since the Pleistocene era and he was not scared of anything or anyone. It was just that he was also a mollusc who liked the dark, and he had a soft boneless body, and each of his gills had a heart. Although he was very powerful and very fast, and was so, almost terribly, clever, there were times when he liked to feel gentle and liquid. But this only felt safe alone.
Sometimes one of the sharks would come nosing down a little further than the others on their way up the coast. This was what Shane got for making his home so near to the kelp. But he usually was too deep for these splashier sharks to find him. This shark was odd for that, and odd also that it looked a lot like a leopard shark, which should not have been so far north. It was out of its range. It was swimming with very few playmates. This was weird, and somewhat special. But that did not bother Shane either.
Shane could grow up to 4 metres long, had 9 brains, and had been known to prey on sharks.
He did not like the way they traveled in packs, but it did not induce him to fear. It was more like a sense of nausea or unease, like something was slipping through all eight of his tentacle-fingers, or a lack like a gap in the rock, a fissure set too deep for him to check. Looking up at them was like looking down across the sinkhole where Shane buried all the evidence of ever having eaten.
Probably the shark could not sense anything until it was much, much closer. Shane flexed the fingerlike ends of his tentacles and brooded. He wanted a closer look at the shark. But he did not necessarily want to propel himself out of the burrow any father.
This beautiful fish, strong and slender to Shane’s eyes, circled above him. Shane watched the undulating motion, cartilaginous instead of bone. Shane felt a secretion of enzymes at the sight, a glossy redness glowing on his skin as he gazed up at the intruder. This shark had a long white underbelly, broad enough but sinuous, pale in the dark. Shane’s very good eyes tracked the movement.
Shane wondered how far this shark extended his awareness, how sharp or how keen were its senses. Perhaps Shane could go out and get close to him without encountering trouble. Perhaps he was up there unbothered, flashy and obvious, oblivious to all things outside of a four foot or two metre range. Or perhaps it was the opposite, and he already knew Shane was there.
Yet Perhaps he could still risk his way out of the burrow, he could risk travelling a little ways out. He was stronger than the shark was, and if it came down here he would kill it, he knew he could kill it if it came. But it would be a shame, he thought suddenly, to kill something so beautiful. No sooner had he thought this than this thought felt unfortunate, for something was stirring inside him that felt a lot like hunger, or some kind of longing to be full, although Shane did not, per se, have a belly, and his esophagus passed through his brain.
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IV. Death by Water
Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
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Sharks have the ability to determine the direction of a given scent based on the timing of scent detection in each nostril. They are most attracted to the chemicals found in the intestines of other marine species. Sharks possess brain-to-body mass ratios that are similar to mammals and birds,[93] and have exhibited apparent curiosity and behaviour resembling play in the wild.[94][95]
Ilya was a leopard shark, and he was indeed both too far north, and too far out, for comfort.
The leopard shark (Triakis semifasciata) has a smooth, muscular body, with a short, rounded snout. There are well-developed, triangular flaps of skin in front of the nares. The eyes are large and oval, with a nictitating membrane (a protective third eyelid). The line of the mouth is strongly curved.
Their coloration is unique, consisting of prominent black "saddles" in the juveniles which mature into large black spots running along the back, on a silvery to bronzy gray background. The underside is whitish and plain.[5] The average length of a leopard shark is 1.2–1.5 m (3.9–4.9 ft).[10] Rarely males may grow to 1.5 m (4.9 ft) and females 1.8 m (5.9 ft), and there is a record of an exceptional female that measured 2.1 m (6.9 ft) long.[5] The heaviest known leopard shark weighed 18.4 kg (41 lb).[11]
Although Ilya was a male shark, and still somewhat a puppy, he was large for his gender and age. He was also unusually strong, powerful and athletic. Though the species is slender in general, Ilya’s body was stout, with thick, sleek ridges all along it. THis larger body allowed him to tolerate cold. And Ilya was a brave shark. He did not feel the need to cling on to a life in the kelp forests along with the rest of the species.
Not that he did not miss it. The swishing tails, the fronds of brushing kelp. Packs on packs of the most beautiful sharks in the world. There was something about how the kelp fronds brushed against Ilya that made him want to roll around and mate. You could get tangled up in the forest, but Ilya liked that as well. Tangles of fins, the strong slippery feeling of the other sharks’ tails, the abundance of smaller marine animals that made life as a predator like cruising; easy and fun. But Ilya, unlike the other sharks, had noticed changes, and not only in himself, as he was getting older.
The kelp forest was different. Ilya was different also. The dying sunflower sea stars left a trail of spiny urchins in their wake, and Ilya had grown tired of skates and rays.
An active species that swims with a strong undulating motion, a leopard shark like Ilya is commonly spotted cruising in or just beyond the surf zone. But climate change has made the size, geographical range, and observed behaviour of many marine species vary widely from that which has been priorly recorded. As ocean temperatures grow warmer, a variety of shark species have been observed traveling farther north and south, extending their range in search of the temperatures to which they have been adapted. That expansion can put pressure on the cold-water ecosystems, as existing animals habituated to those areas have to adjust.
Shane did not like adjustments. He usually did not have to like them, for he normally did not have to make any. In the few short years he had been alive, things had stayed more or less the same in his part of the pelagic world. It was Ilya’s longer lifespan that had exposed him to more changes, and made him familiar with loss.
The current transition to deeper waters for these sharks had been difficult. The leopard shark is an epipelagic, even euphotic animal. But their bodies are made to feed on the seafloor, where the water is coldest in the zone. In the mesopelagic, the sea floor is already cold. Their solution in these farther-north waters was to cruise and circle not too far down beneath the curtain of the surface, waiting to see what they could smell. If they smelled something, they could dive.
In some ways, Ilya preferred this order of business. When he dived down he almost effortlessly carved up the water below.
Shark skin is almost entirely covered by small placoid scales. The scales are supported by spines, which feel rough when stroked in a backward direction, but when flattened by the forward movement of water, create tiny vortices that reduce hydrodynamic drag and reduce turbulence, making swimming both more efficient and quieter compared to that of bony fishes.[32] It also serves a role in anti-fouling by exhibiting the lotus effect,[33] and their coats have a brilliant shine.
Skimming above the sandy surface, juvenile leopard sharks can pluck up crabs, clam siphons, fish eggs and the burrowing hot-dog-shaped fat innkeeper worm. As a leopard shark like Ilya gets older, it starts eating more fish and fewer crabs. Leopard sharks have been found with smoothhound sharks, bat rays and even octopuses in their stomachs.
The deeper realms seem barren to a leopard shark at first, accustomed as they are to the shorelines that teem with life. There were days that Ilya spent circling, circling again and finding nothing, reluctantly retreating back towards the more familiar waves.
But there was something down there. He wondered if it could see him, in the dark. If it could smell him, the way that he smelled it. Even from what little sensory information he had, he could tell that it was probably an octopus, and that it was probably massive.
Soon Ilya seemed to smell it far too often. He would be off exploring some undiscovered area of the mesopelagic shelf, smelling only water and crayfish, spiny and far, not worth diving for, and then suddenly he would smell the thing again, the strong thing, the strong smell, like the first time.
Either there were many octopuses down there, or this one was following him. Ilya had lived long enough and seen enough of the sea floor to know that octopuses, unlike sharks, did not travel in packs. It would be one octopus. It would be following him. And it would be alone.
What would happen if he went down there? Ilya did not know. But when in doubt he always went out towards something. Perhaps he could eat it. Ilya could eat many things. He always wanted to try.
An Ilya is not unintelligent. Contrary to popular understanding, sharks in general are a sensitive and curious group, capable of strategy and insight. Under a hollow bridge support in San Francisco Bay, a group of leopard sharks and spiny dogfish have been observed feeding on a dense school of anchovies by slowly swimming counterclockwise through the clockwise-swimming school, and swallowing any anchovies that accidentally entered their open mouths.[3]
But after months in this chilly, grey zone, he was reckless. The curiosity that made him so intelligent also sometimes overcame him. It was probably for this reason that he was even down in these waters at all.
The next time Ilya smelled something big, Ilya dived to it. To his surprise, the thing did not retract, which he had learned by now to expect, but came towards him, and all at once he understood two things. The first thing Ilya realised was that he would never be able to eat it. The second thing Ilya realised was that it might eat him instead.
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If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
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Shane took Ilya in his arms and felt the terror and elation of contact.
Ilya thrashed against him, suddenly in terror as well. Too cold, too far down and now down in stark panic regretting it. A large octopus could drag him and consume him, or stuff his body down some abyssal hole or ventral alley-place, where incautious vertebrates yield up their bones, even jellylike skeletons. Ilya knew. He felt his body clash and thump against this shy infernal beast and felt tangled with death, a hundred times stronger, darker and deeper than the kelp, and wondered for a dark long second if he should have ever left the others by the shore.
Deadlier, now that he was in the grip of it, than any other creature of the sea, comfortable with and in the depths below, into which Ilya could not even smell.
But Ilya could smell this creature in front of him and all around him, like a sucking, permeating membrane enveloping, strong and angry, and that yet he was also scared. But his guts were full, satisfied, excellent. This octopus was not hungry, but it held him close and would not let him go. The pressure was always strong down here, but Ilya had never felt like this. It felt like it was trying to crush him.
Unlike bony fish, sharks have a complicated dermal corset made of flexible collagenous fibers arranged as a helical network surrounding their body. The corset works as an outer skeleton, providing attachment for their swimming muscles and conserving energy.[37] Depending on the position of these placoid scales on the body, they can be flexible and can be passively erected, allowing them to change their angle of attack. But Ilya was helpless in Shane’s grasp. Each time he thought he might get out, somehow another arm appeared there, searching for him, blocking up the gap.
Neither of these animals is warm blooded. Thus their bodies felt the same as the ambient temperature around them, even while they struggled. Shane licked Ilya’s rough skin with his fingers. Slowly, he engorged and inflated himself around him. His whole body swallowed him down.
Here is the body he swallowed, I will make you a picture in words: the large first dorsal fin is positioned about halfway between the pectoral and pelvic fins; the second is almost as large as the first and much larger than the anal fin. The pectoral fins are wide and triangular. The lower lobe of the caudal fin is well-developed in adults but less than half the length of the upper lobe, which has a strong ventral notch near the tip.[3][10] Ilya’s notched tip was very handsome.
Two frond-like paths of gills ran down either side of Ilya’s head, pulsing and fluttering as he struggled, as Shane folded around him like sea-spinach, a thousand times more punishing than kelp.
He squeezed him so tight Shane could feel his tiny placoid scales. Somehow he was both rough and smooth, now, against him, and Shane could not imagine this, and found it inordinately pleasing. He rubbed himself along Ilya’s body, wanting to feel him with his head and not only his arms. He marvelled at his white diamond belly, pale and stark in his own roiling arms.
The movement became sweeter. The terror of that grip relaxed.
Now Shane caressed him with his suckers. This allowed Shane to touch, taste and smell Ilya all at the same time. He tasted so good Shane briefly did consider changing tack and eating him. It would probably be quite easy, now, close as he was. It would be safer. It would be known. It would be what Shane could already understand.
But Shane could not bring himself to do it. His heartbeats shuddered in his gills.
Ilya’s body was so strong and clean. It was not like any thing that Shane had ever tasted. Shane placed his suckers all on it like two thousand kisses at once.
Ilya should never have been down here. And yet, what little light penetrated these depths seemed to find him. The mottled coat shone even suspended in blue. The dim water glinted on his fins, and his teeth gleamed as he rolled in Shane’s grasp. The bright black pearls that were his eyes seemed beautiful to Shane, so close to his own, closer than any other eyes had ever been.
Shane did not mind that Ilya’s teeth could tear him, he knew how to keep away from them, or else perhaps he wanted to be torn.
Shane wanted to communicate that he was a virgin. But he could not think how to do it. Ilya knew that he was solitary. That would have to be enough. Already, Ilya felt it through the tremor of his grip, and he would have known that even if he had known less about the species. Although also that body could crush him, was still kind of crushing him presently, Ilya could feel how he was hesitating. Ilya could tell. He was the most powerful creature Ilya had ever seen, and he did not know what he was doing.
Ilya was falling in love with him. Ilya wanted to bite him. He wanted to suck on Shane’s tentacles as he would usually have sucked on another mating shark’s fins, though these limbs were more slimy and tenacious, and he knew they would writhe in his mouth.
The leopard shark captures prey by expanding its buccal cavity to create a suction force, which is facilitated by its labial cartilages swinging forward to form the mouth into a tube. Simultaneously, the shark protrudes its jaws forward to grip the prey between its teeth.[24] As with other sharks, the teeth of the leopard shark are periodically shed and replaced; it takes 9–12 days for a replacement tooth to move into position.[25] Leopard sharks have been caught with stomachs filled with clam siphons, which the sharks seize before the clams can retract and break off with a levering motion of their bodies. On occasion, the shark tears the entire clam body out of its shell this way.[5] Other sharks examined have had stomachs containing whole innkeeper worms with no bite marks, suggesting that the sharks sucked them out of their burrows.
Ilya sucked one of Shane’s tentacles into his mouth. The octopus skin was so slippery and soft that it seemed almost like he could swallow that limb inside and neither of them would get hurt, like he could Suck it all the way down into his stomach intact, and would not know in fact whether he was sucking Shane into him or if Shane was rather feeling down his throat.
Things could be both, it was both, he could feel Shane’s tentacle gripping and crawling and searching, and Ilya would melt and fuse with him, and they would become one unheard of wretched abominable thing that lived nothing and nowhere. But this was an illusion. He could not fully take Shane inside him. He could not get inside of Shane’s skin.
As Ilya sucked him down, Shane’s body began changing colours.
He had started camouflaged in dark black and watery blue, but now he was brilliantly red with himself, a shining and pulsating flex. He could even change his texture, horned and ornery one moment, smooth, soft and tender the next.
HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME
Shane went limp and gentle. He wanted to take Ilya inside him as well. Ilya’s body undulated in his grip, turning itself around, and then Ilya was nosing at his siphon. Nothing and nobody had ever touched Shane like that before, the little open tube there like a pocket.
Ilya’s fins brushed his flesh like a murmur. Shane’s body felt gooey and soft, The broad tip of Ilya’s nose pressed against Shane’s hole, his mouth a sucking clutch. He pushed further into the hole.
The siphon did not grip him; it was slick and oleaginous, sliding over, letting him inside. The open yield was pleasurably unexpected after that first fierce punishing squeeze. The strong smell was overwhelming. Nose against Shane’s soft and tender innards, the multiple sensations tingling and fizzing, like being shot full of venom or enveloped in a cloud of dirt or slime.
Shane winced and trembled, speared open on the nose, And yet still those suckers caressed him, like a many thousand tiny mouths, a living kiss that crawls along connecting the dots on his back. Ilya was laced up like that, was wearing Shane’s arms like a bridle, was rubbing himself off along his skin.
The falling rhythm, the couple-arc like a tetrameter, the undulation does not want to end. The start and stop less sudden than that far first change of mood. There is friction in the water despite everything. All this can generate a little heat. Not much of it, but still it seemed that Shane’s red body glowed.
A lost past, a patch of grass; Shane’s siphon, Ilya’s sucking mouth, the hole of the mouth like the hole of the burrow, the last stop, the antiimage of all things.
Sediment dusting the rock like ash, stirred up by their coupling; eddies underwater like the wind. Ilya felt sad. Ilya felt Shane’s heartbeats against him. He felt his own and knew that Shane was also listening. Soft underwater clacking as the sea goes on.
Eyes shining like a source of life and silence. There was still no good reason to be down here, to stay down here. But Shane was massive and Ilya was in love.
Shane’s arms coiled around Ilya, Once more his red body engulfed him. Shane's entirety throbbed around him, pulsating squeezing roiling curls of powerful sucking flesh in shining lacquered skin. The grip was savage once more, silent, punishing, then Ilya nipped into his skin and he relented. One day Shane was going to cut himself a little on those teeth. His sweet pearlescent suckers glistening like jewels. The scent of his body would never leave Ilya’s mental imprint. Ilya wound himself around Shane as much as possible in return, The flesh of his body brilliant fine like glass or dust. Shane’s body shuddered to take him in. He had never felt so close to anything. Ilya had, but he was still enchanted. Shane was an undiscovered country.
And Ilya knew that Shane was showing him something that Shane had never shown to anyone, and allowing him to remain there, alive in his arms, that he was the only creature some five or ten or hundred fathoms deep that had ever touched and felt Shane in this way.
Shane became a pale white, which indicated relaxation. He was the same colour as Ilya's belly, and Ilya would do it; Ilya would move for Shane; he would stay here. Ilya would stay forever. Shane would feed him crayfish and let him smell everything, the dark rocks and the squid ink, and fall in love with this abandoned river underground.
He knew he would never go hungry if they were together down here. The black voids only seem barren at first, to the ignorant. An Ilya type shark is very clever, and a Shane is among the smartest creatures. Every fibre of him bent towards survival. In fact it has been estimated that Shane vastly exceeds even normal human intelligence, whatever that is.
Ilya was simultaneously both older and younger than Shane: He was older by four years, but younger in the life of his own species, by which standards he was just a puppy. Now that things were quiet and still between them, Shane could look at him properly. His fins and his rows of neat sharp spots were very dark, almost inky, and arranged very nicely on his long, graceful tail. He was even more strange and beautiful, beyond compare up close. And Shane knew that even if he held him for 900 years even then he would not understand him. There still would not be enough time. As they lay together Shane was not sure for which he hungered more, the longer lifespan or the youth.
Ilya’s tail swished in satisfaction, his gill-slits pulsating slimly. Shane ran his arms along it and around him. Ilya allowed Shane to explore him sweetly this time. His patience and trust was rewarded. Rolling coils of tentacles embraced him softly. His trembling, boneless, 9-minded limbs.
And though his body was white the tips of Shane’s tentacles were still blushing purple, bright in the watery gloom. The ends of him glowing like a thermal vent, a fissure in reverse, a place that Ilya had never known.
The lifespans of both leopard sharks and giant pacific octopuses are highly variable. Leopard sharks can live up to thirty years or more. As for the maximum possible lifespan of a non-scensecent member of the giant pacific octopus species, the fact is that no-one really knows.
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