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Squid #11
(published Late in the Year, 2000)
Ask The Giant Squid: Looking for Mr. Yoda-Poo
Who is Poor Mojo's Giant Squid?
Dear Mr. Giant Squid sir:

I wish very much to expound upon you my experience in one class of my seven hour day, my dreaded American Honors Literature class.

This class is taught by a crusty old man, who I am not quite so sure is still alive. I mean, I'm relatively sure that he lives and breathes...but his age and mental capacity boggles my noggin. He is 63, and has been teaching for...uh...too long. Yes, that number will do quite nicely.

This scary old man, who I will refer to as only "Mr. Yoda-Poo" so as not to offend your squidly graces, is in need of some deep, deep help. He thrives on torturing quasi-coherent english students in their bleak and meandering existence that we know as "high school." I'm not sure if you've heard of this term, having gained all of your knowledge in some other squidly manner.

Anyway, "Mr. Yoda-Poo" is frightening not only in mood but in appearance as well. I present to you further evidence to his scary-ocity:

1.) Mr. Y-P enjoys flicking his tongue out (do you know what a tongue is?) at us in a most disturbing way. Think of a frog who has had most of it's fifth limb (yes, i mean the tongue here) chopped down to the size of a pig-fetus liver. This is what he flicks at us, for no apparent reason. Gah.

2.) His voice has a disturbing quality of calm in it, which can often be most deceiving. He can be compared mostly to a pop culture combination of Winnie the Pooh (do you get the Disney channel where you live?) and the monotonous professor from "Ferris Beuler's Day Off" (come on, everyone knows who Ben Stein is, even you, your Squidly Lord).

3.) Lastly, and most disturbingly, is his choice in eye-wear. He has chosen to purchase Terminator Style sunglasses from the local pharmacy, which seems to be all the rage among the elderly these days. Nursing homes across the continents are just overflowing with the square plastic sunglasses...frightening things, really. But the most disturbing aspect of them is that he wears them constantly, no matter the weather, or if he is indoors or out.

All this evidence I produce for you, majestic squid, as prologue to my question. My question being this:

Is it wrong, and if it is, just how wrong is it, to have someone killed, even if it will benefit the greater good? (In this case the greater good would be the...oh, say...150 students who have Mr. Y-P. He is MOST disturbing.)

Thank you for your time,
Cecil Pavilion
Co-founder of the "I Love 'Ask The Giant Squid' Fanclub"


Cecil,

The question you ask is difficult to answer. Ordinarily, the prospect of one less sweaty monkey chattering away would cheer me greatly. My skin blushes a vibrant ochre on every occasion that my coaxial consciousness hears of a great accident. A plane crashes: 200 less simian mouths moving and chewing. An earthquake: even the very firmament upon which you stand (such a dull plain two dimensions makes— where is the danger? No wonder all of you furry meat-sacks are so torpid and weak. You need predators above you, under you, all around you to fully develop your potential) mocks you and hates you.

When you talk on your telephonous devices, I hear it. When upon formal occasions you feel the need to discuss at length and breadth the costuming and coloration, I hear it. When one of you cries into your pocked receiver, I hear it.

In my prison, in this tower in your Ohioan Cincinnati, I have become empathic against my will. My tentacles resonate with your pain and sorrow and bliss.

Margie just had another baby, my beak clicks in delight.

Johnny refuses like a dung-stained nurse shark to go to the prom with Natalie. Her hate is my hate. A bright, righteous hate.

My emotions are not my own, my emotions are yours. Your telephone conversations route through my hearty web of neurons. Oh yes. Consider this an affirmation. No matter how sympathetic I am tricked into feeling when you are on your phone-machine, the second our connection is severed my hate swells. A simple equation stated for your monkey brains: the more you speak, the more this squid in his glass and iron jail detests.

Once, years ago, an educated (by warm-blooded standards; there is not a ray, cuttle-fish or ragged pair of claws scuttling along the bottom of the ocean that could not out perform your greatest mentalists. Cool blood it would seem, promotes a singular coolness of mind) simian told an anecdote regarding your dead french author, Sartre. It seems that this Sartre wrote bitter and hateful phantasies, as bitter as any bardic seahorse has scribbled. When this dead french ground-crawler was asked where he located his ideas, he replied that all that was necessary was to sit in a public house, a cafe, a restaurant and to listen to one's fellow customers. A deeply muse-ic rage would follow from which great works could be generated.

My best plans for domination come on Thursday nights. I listen to mammal-youth make their plans for the upcoming bacchanalia of the weekend, and my black hearts grow so much blacker.

Why hasn't Jimmy called Ryanne back?

Can you believe what a ho Sandy was being?

Man, Slipknot rules!

I laugh with their joy and weep with their sorrow— a puppet on Mr. Bell's wires. And when the connection is broken? I slip back down into the cool, close depths of my loathing.

Ordinarily, I would feel no pity or sorrow at the prospect of one less monkey squawking across my axons, but in this solitary case, I do. Mr. Yoda-Poo deserves no malice— quite the opposite. Archteuthis, like myself, as you well know, never cease growing. Every season brings increased tonnage and strength. Alacrity, celerity, a certain sharpness of beak. Elders are beings to fear and flee from. Never to be assaulted. If this Yoda-Poo is indeed 65 seasons old, his might must be legendary and his strength titanic. The oldest Architeuthis I have known was a mere 46 cycles, and he could crush steel vessels with his smallest of tentacles.

Instead of worrying about assassination, I'd worry about his no-doubt ever-increasing hunger. Architeuthis will eat their young, and if I were the venerable Yoda-Poo, I would do the same.

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