by John Morano
Wiff began work on Hootie, whispering, “You owe me big-time, Puffer.”
The morays were forced to either get in line for a cleaning or wait beyond the station for Hootie to leave. But the latter was risky, because one could be declared “uncleanable” merely by staking out the station. While Wiff continued work on the puffer, leaving no scale unturned, Hootie came to a shocking realization. There were only two morays behind the fan coral, a mature male and an adolescent. The female was nowhere to be found.
It was a warm night following a long day on the reef. Kemar was sleeping soundly, a king in his cot with one hundred and thirty-eight dollars stashed in a tin can buried under Meela’s workbench. Makoona had been good to him. Soon, he would be asked to return the favor.
Although physically, the boy was sleeping in Meela’s hangar, in his dreams, his mind found its way to water. The ocean glistened and glowed, lit by a bright moon. Kemar dreamed he was floating out to the reef on his mattress, searching for something he’d left behind, not sure just what it was. The mattress carried him like Aladdin’s magic carpet, barely touching the tips of the swells. He liked this dream. It was peaceful, relaxing.
Eventually, he stopped moving. Over the bow of his bed, a long, blue arm reached out of the sea and slid up onto the mattress. Another arm and then another did the same until finally, a lone octopus crawled aboard. It sat, looking out to sea, never facing the boy. Then a lifeboat glided up beside Kemar, rowed by Captain Phan. Although the boat had holes identical to those of the lifeboat he slept in as a boat person, this one floated easily on the water.
Phan called, “Quick, boy! The Vietnamese have saved Cambodia. I will take you back. It is time to go home. Pay me and come aboard.”
Kemar responded, “I have nothing but this mattress. I cannot pay.”
Phan rubbed his chin and then nodded. “The blue octopus. I will take it as payment, a small gratuity for bringing you home. Quickly now!” Phan reached out to grab the creature.
“No!” Kemar yelled. He deflected the hand and pushed the lifeboat away. As it drifted off, Kemar could hear Phan murmuring, “Come, Kemar. Come now.”
The octopus turned to the boy. It was Binti. He recognized her. She smiled and climbed back into the sea. Half-submerged, she clung to the mattress, flashed the truest blue she could muster, and said, “You have saved me again. Now it is my turn to save you. Welcome home, my friend.”
As the blue water swallowed Binti, Kemar could still hear Phan far off, calling, “Come, Kemar! Come now!”
And then the boy was blinded by a brilliant ray of light shot right into his face. His eyes squeezed more tightly shut against the glare. When the bright beam sunk to his chest, Kemar opened his eyes and realized he was awake and that the beam was coming from a flashlight. Someone was shaking his arm, whispering, “Come, Kemar. Come now.” It was Bao.
The boy pulled on a tattered sweatshirt that Meela had given him and silently followed Bao to the edge of the mangrove. There, in the thin moonlight, the man said, “Not want old witch see Bao. Try kill Bao once.”
“Then you better stay away from her,” Kemar advised.
“Bao want help.”
“From me? Why?”
“Boy know valuable thing. Valuable for Bao and boy.”
“And what’s this valuable thing I know?”
“We fish tonight. You see.”
“I was in a boat all day. I’ll be in one all day tomorrow. I’m tired. I’d rather go back to sleep.”
“Could make two month money in one night with Bao,” the fisherman implored.
“I fished plenty of nights with you and never made that kind of money.”
Bao tugged at the boy’s earlobe. “Tonight different.”
“No, it’s not. I’m going back to sleep.” Kemar turned toward the tool shed.
“When boy need Bao, Bao not sleep. Have short memory.”
Without turning back to face the man, Kemar asked, “What do you want from me?”
“Come, help Bao tonight.”
“And then, after that, I owe you nothing.”
“Fish hard tonight. Ask no question. Keep quiet, and debt is paid. Hear no more from Bao.”
The two walked off into the darkness.
Later, Kemar found himself mildly surprised, not so much with where Bao had asked to go, but with the fact that he’d actually cooperated with the fisherman. Seated in the same boat that had come to the boy’s rescue, they bobbed on the sea over one of Al’s most secret fishing spots.
“Find bottle,” Bao commanded. “Tie up.”
Kemar searched for the floating bottle that marked the mooring line. He didn’t like the way things were shaping up, but if this one night would free him of Bao forever, the boy was willing to take the chance.
If morays are anything, they’re sneaky, suspicious predators. The mother moray was no exception to the rule. Convinced that her mate and their child could handle the blowfish and skeptical that they should abandon the feeding ground, the mother returned to rummaging in the wreck.
When it floated by, her instincts were confirmed. The moray couldn’t believe her luck. A solitary octopus egg drifted directly past her nose. She could smell the prey, see the tiny octopus inside the soft, transparent shell. Immediately, the moray sucked it in, swallowing with satisfaction.
She scanned the coral valley, hoping to locate what crack, what crevice, leaked the egg. If there was one unhatched octopus egg here, there were probably thousands more tucked away in some coral corner nearby. Judging from the advanced development of the one she’d swallowed, she believed the eggs would be hatching soon. And, knowing that the mother octopus would not be feeding while she tended to her offspring, the moray guessed that she was very weak at this point.
The moray’s instincts were right on target. Binti was barely alive.
When she didn’t see any other eggs on the coral, the moray, who isn’t known for superior eyesight, became more active. She slithered out from under the wreck, felt the current carefully, and attempted to reconstruct the path the egg had taken. The predator swam into the drift, tasting, smelling, on the lookout for anything that murmured octopus.
As she passed above Binti’s lair, a strange scent nudged her nostrils. It wasn’t that of an octopus; rather, she smelled fish, a blowfish. She tracked the smell. It led her to a small stand of sponge in a coral valley across from the wreck. The moray wriggled into the sponges, coiling in the dark along their bases. The scent was strong and fresh.
Could it be the same blowfish who stumbled upon us? she wondered. What if the blowfish didn’t “stumble” upon us? Maybe it wasn’t an accident. But why would a blowfish intentionally agitate a family of eels? Why would it want to commit sure scalicide?
At that moment, a large reef shark swam overhead. It didn’t see the moray, but she could see it. She could also see the remora stealing scraps from the shark’s gills. And then she remembered something she’d heard at the cleaning station, something about a blowfish and an octopus who were best friends.
It’s a long shot, she thought, but perhaps this blowfish and the lone octopus egg are connected. The moray decided to look this spot over very carefully. She’d leave no shell unturned.
It didn’t take long to trace the blowfish’s scent. She located the sponge with the hole, where Hootie had hidden himself. Then she followed the scent beyond the sponges down the rock alongside Binti’s den, right up to the entrance. There, the blowfish’s path ended. But the moray was getting closer. She could sense opportunity lurking.
She poked around the entrance to Binti’s home until something sweet reached her nose. The brown sponge that sealed off the opening gave the octopus away. Because it was porous, it allowed a trace of scent to leach out into the water. Had the moray not been hunting in that precise spot, the smell would’ve dissipated and never have been noticed, but it was noticed, and now she knew exactly what was on the other side of that sponge.
Kemar returned to his bunk in
Meela’s shed just before dawn. He expected to feel relieved to be rid of his heavy debt to Bao, but he didn’t feel that way. In fact, the boy felt more burdened now than before he left. In clearing his debt to Bao, Kemar had betrayed Al, Campbell, and in a sense, Meela too.
Bao had the boy take him to one of the spots where Kemar tagged fish earlier in the week. Throwing out their nets, they’d pulled up quite a few tagged fish from the reef. Bao kept them all, claiming they were rare or special, either of which enhanced value. They would be sold to the Filipino middleman at a premium rate.
Kemar had ruined Campbell’s work, betrayed a true friend, and ultimately, desecrated the sea he professed to love, the sea that had given gifts to him. The boy fell asleep, wishing that he’d drowned clinging to the cooler on the open sea.
This time, Kemar’s deep slumber afforded him no rest. He couldn’t escape his deeds by closing his eyes and laying his head on a pillow. Moments after he fell asleep, he was carried back to Makoona. The boy had returned to the scene of his crime.
In his dream, Kemar could breathe and swim underwater without difficulty. Like any other resident of the reef, he sat on the hull of an old wreck, watching a rare reef-dwelling bass build a nest in the sand, preparing to receive eggs from a female to create vital new lives. The male fish foraged the floor looking for food. A shadow grew on the surface, darkening the ground below. A net was lowered into the water, and the bass was removed from the sea before it could reproduce.
Disturbed by what he saw, the boy tried to swim off, but he couldn’t move his feet. An octopus had reached out through a hole in the hull and wrapped its arms around the boy’s ankles. It seemed he would have to stay where he was until the show was over.
A quiet plip caused Kemar to glance upward. He saw the bass gently returned to the reef. The creature took a second to fill its gills and get its bearings. Then it raced back to its nest. A tiny red tag dangled near the base of the bass’s dorsal fin. The boy knew where it came from. Unharmed, the fish resumed its foraging. The shadow from above moved on.
Kemar expected the octopus to release him now that the point was made, but the cephalopod maintained its grip. Soon, another shadow darkened the sand. Another net hunted through the water, found the tagged bass, along with several other inhabitants of the reef, and removed them all from the coral.
This time, however, none of the fish found their way back into the sea. The only thing that was returned to the reef was the red tag, now nothing more than garbage, inviting an innocent creature to swallow it and perhaps lose its life as well. Kemar watched the tag slowly sink until it fell directly onto the bass’s unfinished, abandoned nest.
The octopus reached out another arm from beneath the wreck. It picked up the tag and laid it at the boy’s feet. And then Kemar heard a voice ask, “Who are you?” He looked over his shoulder and saw a flamboyant fiery red nudibranch hovering beside him.
The nudibranch repeated, “Who are you?” The creature turned black, fringed with violet, streaked with orange and white. It meandered away, strutting its splendor as only a nudibranch can.
Now it was the octopus’s turn to speak to Kemar. It released the boy’s legs and climbed up into the thick shadow cast by the man-tide overhead. Its mantle crinkled and creased, the octopus presented the red tag and asked, “Who are you?”
Kemar took the tag in his hand and studied it. He contemplated the bass’s empty nest.
The octopus continued, “You do not see clearly. Look through these.” An arm emerged from the shadow and handed the boy a pair of glasses. They were his father’s.
Next, a man’s hands grasped the boy’s shoulders from behind and shook him violently. Kemar couldn’t see the man, and his words were garbled as if the speaker wasn’t actually underwater with him and called from the surface.
As the words became clearer, the dream became dimmer. Once again, someone was shaking the boy awake. This time, it was Al. The American was visibly upset, asking, “Who are you?”
The reality revived and repulsed the boy.
“How could you do that? You little bastard.”
Kemar said nothing. There was nothing to say.
Binti could feel the presence of the moray eel. It was close. The octopus secured her eggs behind her. She removed two strings and hung them in a remote corner of her den, hoping the moray might overlook them and that those who would surely follow looking for an easy meal might miss these eggs as well.
The octopus didn’t know how successful Hootie had been, but she guessed not very, since the moray was here and the blowfish was not. Binti slid toward her entrance, prepared to fight her final battle. If the moray smelled only Binti, then she might be able to lure it away, but if it smelled the eggs, they were gone. There’d be no way to stop the moray.
The predator approached the sponge that sealed the entrance to Binti’s home. The smell of the octopus was very strong, very fresh. She would eat. The moray waved her nose around the entrance and followed the scent into the sponge.
She flashed crooked, sharp teeth, stretched her massive jaw, tensed long, powerful muscles, and prepared to burst into the coral cleft. She gazed at the sponge with cold blue eyes. Then she threw itself at the flimsy façade, laughing. But the sponge was not as flimsy as the moray had anticipated. It covered the crack and repelled her thrust. The moray withdrew and considered the problem.
Inside her lair, Binti was aware of the moray’s charge. She readied herself but became puzzled when the sponge deflected the predator and it retreated. Her confusion ended when the sponge said, “There is danger at your door.”
Then the brown sponge glared out at the moray, warning, “It’s one thing to bark, another to bite. The show ain’t over `till you pack up for the night.”
The moray replied to the talking sponge, “I have no quarrel with you. Move aside and allow me to eat. Do not interfere or I will eat twice today.”
Again, the barricade spoke, “Squirm, you sinner. Howl and moan. The Devil is your due.”
Binti suddenly understood who the sponge actually was. She slid up to Molo, caressed him gently, and whispered, “Leave here. I will die for my eggs. There’s no reason to add your life to this.”
Molo answered, “A friend in trouble is a friend indeed, and what you’ve got here is a friend in need . . . Ain’t complaining about what I got. Seen better times, but who has not?”
“This is a bad time, Molo, a very bad time. And you’re not gonna change it, so get out of here. Please.”
“Tell me the cost,” Molo countered. “I can pay, let me go. Tell me love is not lost.”
“Don’t fight the moray. The cost could be your life.”
The male grinned. “When you have done your best and even more is asked of you, let fate decide the rest.”
Just as she finished her plea, the impatient moray attacked her mate, this time biting into the soft sponge and removing a small piece of it. The moray chewed, swallowed, and understood what the sponge really was. She could taste it.
Molo focused his attention on the moray. Blue blood leaked from the base of one arm. He raised himself and uncoiled and shed the brown coloring, and his body became pure black with bolts of red and blue racing through his flesh. He waved his arms menacingly and taunted, “What good is spilling blood? It will not grow a thing. You know you’re bound to wind up dead if you don’t head back.”
The moray smiled. “I’ll head back as soon as I’m done eating.”
Molo moaned, “And again, the hunt begins, and again, the bloodwind calls.” Then he threw himself at the moray. It was a suicide leap accentuated by the kamikaze wrecks that littered the waters of Makoona.
Molo wrapped himself around the slippery moray eel, trying to constrict and hold her while at the same time attempting to draw her attention away from Binti and the eggs. The octopus shoved one of his arms into the moray’s mouth. He hoped it would tear at the arm, occupying its teeth with a less critical part of his body. At the same time, Molo slid hi
s mouth under the moray and bared his beak to her belly.
He could see the soft pale underside of the beast. He pulled his flesh back to expose his own small beak, as sharp as any barracuda’s tooth and twice as hard. Molo tightened his grip on the slimy moray and pushed his beak into its supple stomach.
The moray released the arm and swatted Molo with its head, crashing him into a coral wall. It sheared an arm from Molo’s flank with one swift bite, and then another. The water darkened in a purple cloud as the octopus’s blue blood mingled with red dripping from the moray’s underside.
Molo sat for a moment beneath the coral. He watched the female eating two of his arms. She seemed satisfied that she could grab another at will. Molo was motionless. He wanted to flee but couldn’t. He wanted to attack but didn’t have enough strength.
Suddenly, he was dragged from the coral, ripped out of the shelter by the other two morays who’d pursued Hootie. In an instant, two more arms were gone, and there were several deep cuts in Molo’s mantle.
The morays were merciless. They removed two more arms and several other parts from the octopus. The feeding female looked down on the helpless creature, almost nothing but mantle, and taunted, “Would you like to issue any more threats to morays?”
Molo replied, “The biters were biting. The bitten were writhing . . . Paradise awaits on the crest of a wave . . . The Lord will take us when we die to golden shores . . .”
“Well, it won’t have long to wait for you,” the male moray said. “His mind’s as mangled as the rest of him. Leave what’s left for a grouper.”
The eels swam off, satisfied with their meal. Molo also felt satisfaction that they’d forgotten about Binti and her eggs. In filling their bellies, he’d emptied their minds. It was a fair trade. Molo waited in the sand, powerless to prevent others from finishing him off. The octopus watched a lobster walk off with one of his suckers. Soon, it would be over.
Moments after Al stormed out, Kemar rolled off his cot. He walked outside and sat on Meela’s dock, watching the water sparkle as sunlight flashed through gaps in the mangrove behind him. A patient reef egret stood in the shallows, snapping up morsels.
