Written on the Subway Walls

I call this genre "bubblegum eldritch."

Cephalopod did not know what writing was.

 

Cephalopod did not know that to make a mark was to pass along information. Culture. Knowledge of days that turned into knowledge of ages. What Cephalopod did know was that you could chip a rock with another, bigger rock. Cephalopod knew that when you did this, critters scurried out. Cephalopod did not know that it made patterns when you beat a rock with a rock. Cephalopod just wanted the critters.

 

But the next Cephalopod noticed the patterns. It smelled them. It tasted them. It ran its little arms across them. It made its own. Rock against rock, you could make the same pattern over and over, if you liked. Also, it wanted the critters.

 

Then came a cleverer Cephalopod. It noticed you could make the same pattern over and over. But you could make different patterns. You could mix them together. Also, it wanted the critters. So Cephalopod started putting two marks wherever there were critters. Up and down. Left and right.

 

One day it found a mark it had not made.

 

It beat the rock. Out came the critters. Hearty shell crunched in its beak and it looked up to the surface. The sea was a dark abyss of water and pale white fish and something big and fat that swam with a big wide tail. Above that came lighter waters and above that was the shimmering web that drew itself on the surface and above that was places Cephalopod could not go.

 

Cephalopod seized another wriggling critter and crunched it in its beak. Cephalopod was happy.

 

It did not know what writing was. It did not know its name was Cephalopod. It knew a little bit what a human was, but did not know very much else at all, and now it noticed this.

 

Cephalopod wondered.

Author's Note

As always, all comments and criticism are appreciated.