Walsh
the life aquatic
According to Tahitian creation mythology, the newly formed universe, all lush and crawling with trees and beasts and birds and fish, had one fatal flaw: the limbs of a massive octopus were dangling over the edges of the world, pressing down the sky and keeping all the just-born creatures of the earth in a state of everlasting night.
Besides being in the way, the giant cephalopod was also dead—an unhelpful condition, since early heroes could neither ply it with wine and persuade it to find another spot to hang out, nor poke it with large sticks and force it to give up its prime position on top of everything that existed. (One enterprising demi-god who attempted to pull at the great mass of tentacles was rewarded with a hernia, which was unfortunate for him but apparently a good thing for the world in general since legend tells us his intestines floated away to become clouds over Bora Bora.)
Finally someone a little smarter used a sea shell to carve off each of the eight limp limbs, and as they fell away the earth’s grass and sea and mountains were lit up with the very first dawn.
I’m pretty sure the moral of the story is that octopuses are way, way cooler alive than dead. Also, don’t be a hero.
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