Again it descends.
Draped in the light from the above.
They are concerning to us.
We have checked, and they have no beak.
They seem to be a fighter.
They only have 4 tentacles left.
This means they fight one who is bigger.
But without a beak why fight?
For a den maybe?
Do creatures that big even fit in dens?
Maybe it's different above.
It gets closer.
It's a shelled one.
It has eels around it.
They are young eels that go into their shell.
We have tried to pull the eels out before, but it pulled us off with it's tentacle.
The ones without shells have short snakes that go up.
It seems that their size makes them slow, and unwise.
Their tentacles often don't move at all.
They sit, and move slowly.
This one is a light bringer.
I don't like light bringers.
The light they bring is so bright.
They are such odd creatures.
Some have 2 eyes, but light bringers have 3.
The third is attached to their tentacles, and brings the light to us.
Maybe if we block the third eye the light will go away.
We try to grab the third eye, and manage to take it to our den.
Even with their size they cannot compete with our minds.
Curators Notes
What exactly are you? And what would you define as yourself, or your consciousness? You can probably give me many answers, one of which is the question “What do you mean? what part?“. But no matter what you do every answer to what you are will be self-referential. You consider yourself a single being that is controlled top-down by your brain, and that you have your own unique (or semi-unique) personality. This model works decently well enough for humans, but what about other animals. Specifically what about other animals with semi-decentralized nervous systems.
If you are not aware there are several animals that are difficult to define as one “thing”. Creatures like Octopus and man O’ War being two common examples. Unlike the Man O’ War however and octopus has both central and decentralized processing. Octopus have an incredible amount of processing power in each of their limbs, and as such our model of “central control” doesn’t exactly fit. Being an octopus seemingly is more like being a person who manages trains from a desk in the trainyard. You can tell the conductor of each train what to do, but you don’t have granular control. Sometimes they might even decide to ignore you completely, or act independently to save themselves. Aelretzia with this short story wanted to illustrate this point, and ask the question of what the conscious experience of decentralized neurological processing might “feel” like. Specifically what the interaction between an octopus and a scuba diver might be like from the octopus’ perspective.