SQUID: The Cephalopod's Shadow

	Uvular ink bottle,
	A phantom pulse in the deep;
	A mobile jet propulsion lab,
	Gliding through the ocean’s breath.

	Undulating ribbon of terror,
	Blue-blooded, diaphanous dart ;
	A cunning fish robber,
	never surfacing sleek bobber

	Contracting, expanding,
	A mosaic of chromatophores,
	Performing a silent, shivering dance
	In the sunless dark 

	Then a predator draws near. 
	Snap! Snap!

	Without the luxury of worry,
	That ghost retreats into the brine
	Back once more to Death’s cold lap,
	Fleeing from sharp jaws,
	Returning to the depths
	Where silence reigns supreme.


The hum of the ventilation system felt like the rhythmic pulse of the creature in the poem. Soo
broke the silence first, a sharp, ironic laugh escaping her lips as she leaned back in her
chair. "Some of my best friends are squids," she quipped, eyes twinkling with a mischievous
light.

Andrei didn’t look up from his notes, but he raised a single, skeptical eyebrow. "Aren’t most
politicians in that genus?"

"Precisely," Philyra interjected, nodding with deliberate gravity. She mimicked a cloud
dispersing, hands swirling through the air. "Utterly spineless—but adept at squirting ink."

Ellesha’s brow furrowed, her expression darkening as she scanned the circle. "Sober up and stop
'othering' the leaders," she countered, voice dropping an octave, The heaviness of truth filling
the space. "For the most part, we manufacture our own monsters; Look closely enough, and you’ll
find squids swimming within us."

Ning adjusted her glasses, voice clinical, detached as if lecturing from a distance. "This
strikes me as an apt illustration of what Saïd termed ‘othering’— The psychological act of
setting oneself apart to feel superior over nature."

Vidhya groaned, throwing her hands up in an impatient gesture that nearly toppled her water
glass. “C’mon! It’s just a poem about sea creatures. Why the exegesis? Can’t a squid just be a
squid?”

Ning remained unfazed, a mask of pseudo-seriousness Making it impossible to gauge her sincerity.
"Because, Vidhya, every time we 'other' a fragment of existence, we lose a piece of ourselves in
the process."

Vidhya sighed, shoulders slumping, staring at the floor beneath the weight of their words. "I
wonder," she whispered, a genuine weariness in her tone, “Why don’t more people notice that?"


=====================================================================================
from _Let the waters be my witness: Messages about our watery world_ by T Newfields
SUMMARY: A group debates the meanings behind a squid poem, exploring themes of identity and connection.
KEYWORDS: squids, marine predators, othering, martime monsters, connections

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955)
Begun: 1997 in Shizuoka, Japan / Finished: 20226 in Shizuoka, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

Note: This piece was partially generated with AI tools for styling and ideation; human editing was then applied.

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