City of Saints and Madmen

Why must the King Squid do this? Alas, as every aspirating young squidologist knows, the squid’s cartilaginous head capsule has little elasticity. It already houses a miraculous clamor of inmates: luminous eyes, a large brain, the esophagus.

Is this a flaw or some forethought the squidologist has not yet deciphered?

A SHORT DIGRESSION ON SQUID EYES

And the eyes! If the eyes function as a window on the soul as so many doctors seem to believe,7then the King Squid is a being from the Truffidian’s Heaven. Firstly, a squid’s eyes are not binocular: each sees what is on that side of the head. As a result, a squid can see twice as well as a human being; four times as well as those of you with glasses. Secondly, these eyes come in all shapes and sizes, from eyes as big as wagon wheels to eyes as small as buttons. Oblong, circular, ovoid, slitty, triangulated, spherical, octagonal. In colors that range from the exact shade of the green-gold sunset over Ambergris through the bars (of distant music) to the red-silver shimmer of a rich woman’s skirt at visiting time.

The King Squid’s eyes number not one like the Cyclopedic Swelling Squid, nor two like Every Other Type of Squid, but three! Three eyes! The third and most exciting lies hidden on the underside of the mantle. The third eye performs two miraculous functions. Firstly, it detects bioluminescence only.

Secondly, certain retina secretions suggest that this third eye produces a beam of light to aid the squid in seeing through the murky silt of theMothRiver.

I can shed no further light on this subject as profound as the King Squid’s own.

CONTINUING ON WITH LESSER-KNOWN UNCOMMON CHARACTERISTICS

But this, as I have said, any enterprising8young squidologist must already know — if not from first hand adventures than from any of the treacly but beloved kiddie squid cartoons that I believe still run amok in the various Ambergris broadsheets.

What the bemuddened, water-splashed, invertebrate-loving young rascal may be unaware of are certain aspects of the King Squid’s physiology and behavior that separate it from its squidkin. This should come as no surprise, given the paucity of quality sources for squidfact.

Firstly, the King Squid may reach adult lengths of 150 feet and weights of more than 5,000 pounds (would that the Moth were wider, deeper, and therefore more hospitable to larger specimens). As a result, the King Squid has the largest beak of any known squid. Squid beaks run small in relation to the body, but this still means a brave man with arms outstretched could just touch a large King Squid’s open upper and lower mandibles. Since this would require said man’s head to be inside said squid’s mouth, I cannot recommend it as a measurement technique except when approaching the deadest of squid.

But size alone cannot explain our lifelong fascination with the King Squid. Indeed, not even the most reputable amateur squidologist would recognize the creature in its juvenile phase, when it resembles the larva of some aquatic insect.9This has caused several unfortunate errors over the years.

TAKE THE CASE OF RICHARD SMYTHE, AMATEUR SQUIDOLOGIST

For example, even a published amateur squidologist such as Mr. Richard Smythe — a traveling salesman residing in the landlocked city ofLeander — can make a mistake. Mr. Smythe scooped up a jar of Moth water on a trip to Nicea precisely because it was full of what he believed to be insect larvae. Once home, he added the water to his aquarium to feed his patient fish and promptly departed in pursuit of a rumor of umbrellas needed in an umbrella-less land. Upon his return three weeks later, an angry King Squid the size of a small dog greeted him from the fishless tank. The starving squid promptly set upon the unfortunate Mr. Smythe, arms and tentacles flailing. Only the unsold umbrellas from his trip saved this silly man from an otherwise grinding fate. That he and the squid later became the best of friends does not alter the two basic lessons to be derived from this story: Always strain your water for juvenile squidlings and never trust water from the River Moth.

ENEMIES AND EATABLES

According to Clyde Aldrich, hailed by inaccurate blateroons as the “leading expert” on the King Squid, this beast among squid has no natural enemies. (This is not the case for its closest relative, the southern saltwater Saphant Squid, which must fend off the treacherous predations of the schizophrenic Saphant Whale — the whale that framed an empire, so to speak.)

As for the King Squid’s consumables, we can say with some authority that it eats with more variety than those released at the appointed hour to graze the cafeterias or even kitchens. The King Squid is a rapturous meativore that hunts relentlessly for prey ranging from insects, crustaceans, fish, other squid, and cows (when available), to the contents of badly placed houses. In short, the King Squid will eat anything it can wrap its limbs around, including the deadly but stupid freshwater shark. However, contrary to George Edgewick’s A Study of the Link Between Invertebrates & Garbage, the King Squid, due to its highly developed sense of smell, does not follow garbage scows any more than it would care to order out from an Ambergrisian tavern.

THE PLAYFUL SIDE OF THE KING SQUID

All talk of predators and prey aside, the King Squid expresses a playful side when released from the prison of rote instinct. This sense of play usually manifests itself through its propulsion system. To move about, the squid depends upon its funnel — a short, hose-like organ that projects from the mantle below the head. Because the mantle swivels, the squid has remarkable funnel control. From which point derives one of the most remarkable of the King Squid’s habits.

Namely, the King Squid has been known to shoot long streamers of water at unsuspecting travelers who walk on paths along the riverbank. These high-speed columns of water can travel as far as 80 feet inland and douse a soon-spluttering pedestrian with a pungent dose of silty water.

Such preternatural aim requires excellent eyesight and remarkable intelligence. The displays are often accompanied by a “huffing” sound that I believe is laughter, despite what my neighbor John says about my theories. The so-called experts — who could be locked up forever in a cell for all I care — believe this is just an effect created by refilling the funnel with water to have another go.

Regardless, as an unfortunate result, those bloated ticks who congregate under the name “The Ambergrisian Safety League” drafted a resolution allocating monies to train squid as firefighters for those sections of Ambergris accessible by water. Less laughable although more absurd are the oft-fatal and crackpot “squid baptisms” performed by the Church of the Squid Children, a cult that attempts to provoke “the holy act of absolution” from the squid. As might be expected from a confirmed meativore, the King Squid rarely obliges with anything approaching civilized behavior.

FURTHER INKLINGS OF SQUID INTELLIGENCE — AND A BROD SIGHTING

Meanwhile, further inklings of King Squid intelligence continue to surface, the ripplings of a case for cognitive ability long established by physiological evidence. Surely it cannot be coincidence that the squid’s two