Octopus by Margaret Emma Brandl
Pushing off the dock, I picture myself as an octopus: orangey-red, tentacled, suction cups. I open my hand, un-suctioning the beer bottle, and it bobs back up immediately. I make a sucking, slurping noise for my octopus tentacles, wrapping my hand around the bottle again. Sssshhhlp. The moon is pathetic, the waves dark, but if I turn my hand just so I can see where light catches on the curved brown glass.
My brother is somewhere beneath me. I forgot to take my socks off—not a very good octopus in these clothes—but I wiggle my toes as if I could touch him. I’ve been calling out to him all night but he isn’t answering.
I try to force the bottle to stay under, but as soon as I let it go, it jumps back up with a little splash—just enough every time for me to grope after it, catch it again in my grasp. Then I hold the bottle close to my chest, listening hard for the little slip of water into glass like the plastic cup Wendy’s son played with in the bathtub. He liked to watch the miniature waterfalls of it, the way the water tipped in when he held the opening just below the surface.
“Message in a bottle,” I say to no one, surprising myself with the sound of my voice over the waves. My suction-cup tentacle lets go when the bottle feels like it might be full, and then there is no resurfacing splash. I reach around me for the bottle—under the water in all directions. Nothing.
In my mind my body goes octopus-orange. I close my eyes and bring my face down into the water, go end-over-end, open my eyes to nothing but a sting and darkness. I reach my tentacles for the bottle: deeper, deeper, deeper.
october 24th, 2020Margaret Emma Brandl’s writing has appeared in journals such as Gulf Coast, The Cincinnati Review, Yalobusha Review, Pithead Chapel, Cartridge Lit, and CHEAP POP. She earned her PhD at Texas Tech University and her MFA at Notre Dame, and she currently teaches at Austin College.