“This far out at sea. No one else around. Would it be correct to say, then, that you are on a hunt of your own?” I ask.
The man hesitates before saying, “Perhaps.”
“And what are you hunting, if you don’t mind me asking?” The man looks at me as if perhaps I’ve overstepped my bounds, and I look back at him without blinking. The silence becomes too much. “If we’re just talking. Captain to captain.”
“We’re just talking,” he confirms, before answering. “What is anyone hunting for? Peace. Solace. Meaning.” Then, after a pause, “Spoils.”
“Spoils?” The word strikes me as odd. Like the spoils of war?
The man shrugs.
We eat our stew and the Owe Too rises and falls over a big wave and we both brace ourselves against the table, afraid that the squall has turned back in our direction. After a moment of relative stillness, it seems the wave was an aberration.
“You know, I may have seen your octopus,” the man says.
I drop my fork and the tines strike my bowl with a clang. “You have?”
“Not three days ago. Goldie and I were enjoying the sunset when off the starboard side there was a slick reflection that sparkled differently off the water than the last of the sun. I looked more closely and I swear I could see an eye watching us. The eye blinked once before Goldie caught a whiff of him and started barking. The thing swam closer, eyeing Goldie, and I grabbed her collar and held her close. The whole experience was over in a matter of seconds, but it was unnerving. As it approached our ship it sank beneath the surface and I never saw it come up again.”
The hairs stand up on the back of my neck and we both reach for our tipple. My gut was correct.
We are close.
I notice the man has a Magic 8 Ball on the shelf beside the table. The kind I had as a kid. I reach for it.
“Do you mind?”
The man nods his permission. I cup the black ball with two hands and ask my question aloud. “Will I ever catch up with the octopus?” I give the ball a good shake before turning it over.
Signs point to yes.
“There you have it,” the man says as he smiles a crooked smile. “The 8 Ball never lies.” He clears his dish and reaches for mine. “More?”
Before I can say yes, Lily starts to growl. I look up, afraid that her love of chicken and rice has emboldened Lily to challenge Goldie for the bigger dog’s share. But their dishes are empty, and Goldie is nowhere to be seen.
Lily is growling at the man.
“Lily! That’s not nice. He made you chicken and rice! Where’s Goldie? Say thank you to our hosts.”
GOLDIE! IS! A! FISH!
“What? What are you talking about? Goldie is a dog, like you.”
Her growling continues, low and guttural. It’s a noise I’ve only heard her make once before, when we were on a walk back home in Los Angeles one night and a coyote ambled across our path.
I’m becoming increasingly alarmed.
“Don’t worry,” the man says. “The storm has her on high alert. That’s a good dog you have there.” He sets the dishes near the sink. “Would be a shame if anything happened to her.”
His every word exacerbates the situation, and things escalate quickly. Lily is gnashing what teeth she has left in her old age, and she crouches low, ready to attack.
“Lily?” This time I don’t scold. This time I know better. This time I trust my dog.
I turn to the man. “How did you come to name the Owe Too?”
He answers without hesitation. “I owe too much on the title.”
Owe Too.
Lily’s barking is now out of control. Goldie is a fish? I look around for the retriever, but there is no sign of her. I can barely gather my thoughts over the racket, but I force myself to think fast.
Owe Too.
What do you see, Lily, that I do not?
Owe too.
Oh, to . . . Oh to what?
Oh two. It doesn’t mean anything!
O2?
Oxygen.
I can barely breathe and my heart beats fast. Think, goddammit. I can hardly hear my own thoughts over the yelp of Lily’s barking. I look down at my feet for bearings. Oxygen. Breath. Life.
And then it hits.
The atomic number of oxygen is eight. Oxygen is the eighth element on the periodic table of elements.
Eight.
The Magic 8 Ball.
I lift my head slowly and look up at our rescuer with growing scorn. His eyes are fixed on Lily.
“She has a hurricane inside of her.” The man winks at me slowly, deliberately. “Doesn’t she.”
Bile rises in my throat. Only three people know about the hurricane.
Myself.
Lily.
And the octopus.
The Hunt
I pivot quickly, positioning myself between Lily and the octopus. Reflexively, I grab the empty scotch bottle and whack it against the table. It doesn’t break. I whack it again—nothing. Why is it so easy to make a jagged weapon in movies and I can’t get this scotch bottle to so much as crack? The octopus stands between us and the exit and Goldie is still nowhere to be seen.
“It’s you, isn’t it.”
“Who?”
“The one we hunt.” There’s another bottle, a second bottle, on the counter. I grab this one instead and bring it down on the table with all my might and this bottle breaks and out comes my scribbled warning: I KNOW YOU’RE OUT THERE. He found the bottle. My bottle.
The octopus wipes a string of drool from his human mouth. “I wondered when you would recognize me.”
“Your ugly, fleshy head should have been a dead giveaway.” I’m mad at myself for being so easily seduced by the idea of companionship and food. I should have known. He wasn’t blue from the cold, he was purple from being a cephalopod. Twenty-four days
