The other night my brain tricked me.
I had settled into the most blissful sleep. In my dream my husband and I were strolling on a deserted beach. It was not too hot or too cold. If Peaceful painted a picture, this would have been Its masterpiece. I was wearing a white bathing suit that would never make an appearance on my real life body. The horror of seeing Suzy in the tenth grade get out of the swimming pool in her white swimsuit forever burned into my mind. But this was a dream. And in dreams white swimsuits don’t become completely see-through when they get wet. The tenth grade does not exist. And my thighs do not slap together when I walk. Which I kind of missed. It is nice always having your own applause.
The dream went on for a while this way. Walking and never tiring. Feet not burning in the hot sand. There was no tripping on seaweed. Just a blissful mist of seaspray in my hair. My husband stopped walking and turned to me. He never spoke in my dream. He simply opened his hand. In his hand was a shiny cotton candy colored pink Easter egg.
He solemnly handed it to me.
I rolled the smooth plastic between my hands. And then I cracked it open and peered inside.
Inside of the Easter egg lay the cutest, sweetest baby octopus. It was light brown in color and about three inches around if all of its tentacles stretched out in my palm, which it did as soon as I poured it from the pastel egg shell into my hand.
It tickled.
We continued to walk.
As we walked, I absentmindedly began to massage the octopus in my hand. I rolled it between my fingers. I stroked it with my thumb.
I did this until I noticed that something did not quite feel right. Something was not the same. The smooth skin of the octopus now felt sticky as if I had pulled all of its moisture from its body with my mindless kneading. My heart flipped in my chest. I opened my hand. The baby octopus lay in a still matted ball. It now resembled one of those sticky toys after it had been played with by a child for five minutes. Lint and stray hairs covered its now grey-tinged skin. It was a wadded-up mass of careless destruction.
Had I killed it?
I bent my face closer to see. I felt remorse all the way down to my sandy toes. Even my white bathing suit turned pink with shame.
My face grew closer and closer to the still octopus.
When it was about ten inches from the unfortunate creature, I paused and exhaled a breath.
It was dead.
Tears began to blur my vision. And just as I blinked and the world became clear again, it happened.
The balled up octopus unfurled itself in a red rage of flurry. Its beady black eyes were filled with the wrath only known to a creature used as a stress ball. Its beak screamed and it launched itself at my face in an unexpected and terrifying quickness of movement.
I woke up just as its sticky body was suffocating my nose and its tentacles were easing themselves down my throat.
And that is why I now have a new fear, folks. Of baby octopuses. Easter eggs. And gifts from my husband.
White bathing suits, on the other hand, are still fantastic… In dreams.
