The Last Voyage of Ulysses

It was a day that much like many others that came before, possessed a pleasant warmth deep under the waves of the Pacific. Thereupon the frocks of vibrant coral lacing up the elegant shine of sunlight breaching the depths of the sea, lived a small creature named Octopus, who was known for being very clever and very curious. You see, he would often scour the depths of his reef and the shallows, finding shipwrecks and strange metals and tools that he would snatch up and take back home to an old empty deep sea diving suit, where he would tinker and play with all the little things he found. And if he found himself in any trouble, he would rush inside the helmet and shield himself by closing it shut! 

The life under the waves was a harsh beauty. At any point, he could be set upon by the great beast, Shark, or snatch up a meal for himself by trying to snatch Crab or one of Crab’s kin from within his hiding place in a forgotten coconut or shell. However, despite this, Octopus still had a love of all things beautiful and new, and he’d often take in the sight of the thick blankets of Fish’s school swimming above, or the hefty breach of Whale and Porpoise overhead. It was the sea, and the sea, like all great things in nature or otherwise, could be both beautiful and terrifying. 

Now it was on this particular day that Octopus decided to go exploring again, scrounging the shallows for any knick-knacks and trinkets, when he stumbled upon something odd: A pair of hairy feet. Now, Octopus had heard a lot about humans, but never actually met one, so he decided to have a closer look. Octopus was the curious sort, after all, and where was the harm? They didn’t look like sharks or anything. Octopus soon discovered there was not one, but many hairy feet, on hairy legs, some in the water, some in the sand, all of them making some rampant manner of noise. He looked even further, slipping and sliding and finding boards leading to a harbor. ‘Oh how wondrous’ thought Octopus, ‘I am sure they have made great, wonderful things!’

Octopus slunk and snuck through a bustling marketplace over what he discovered to be a pier, taking in all the strange and interesting things. There were small licks of sun in thick stone pots, there was braised meat on hooks adorned with strange smells, and there were thick slabs of salt set up on large bricks. There were also hanging squids from the market hooks, and it made Octopus very glad he was not so mindless as to get caught. How he wished he could take everything here and bring it back to his little home below the waves to share his discoveries with his friends, Turtle and Fish. 

Fortunately for him, he got his wish as he looked further. He noticed a strange pattern. Whenever the humans didn’t care for something, they would toss it off the pier. Perhaps they thought the fish would like it more? ‘What a wonderful idea!’ thought Octopus, and he set to work snatching the things up to give them to his friends. 

Octopus returned to his small home with all the stuff the humans tossed aside and began to toy with them. A brand new human set of shells! A brand new human piece of line! A brand new human-made jellyfish! So, one by one, he began to share with all the other creatures in the sea, who, upon finding his discovery, were just as fascinated. 

The first to take the offer was Fish, who was given some fishing wire. ‘Logically,’ Octopus deduced, ‘The fishing wire must belong to the Fish. Why else would it be named fishing wire?’ 

And Fish, being a rather unintuitive creature, agreed, as did his many cousins and brothers and sisters and aunts and fathers and mothers, and so he took the wire and went to share with his school. 

Next up came Turtle, and Octopus plucked a thin wavy bag for her, ‘You eat Jellyfish, this looks like one! So you should have this and try human food.’ and the Turtle, wizened and old, but hard of sight in her age, agreed, and took the bag for herself. 

Only the Shark doubted Octopus, for she bore the scars of fisherman along her side. 

“Mark my words, little one…” She said, “Though you think that humans are kind now, I know them far better.”

But Octopus scoffed at Shark, thinking the beast slow and foolish, “You eat upon us every day, what could the humans do that you couldn’t?” 

“I eat and I kill.” Said the Shark, her eyes blackened in a forlorn stare, “But death is far kinder a fate than those that dwell in the footsteps of humans. For the Whale and I have been here since before humans, and we have seen them and their trespasses. They are too cruel to be making mistakes, and too prideful and greedy to amend them. If you swim to the endless stone further North, you will see.” 

‘Absurd’ thought Octopus, and he decided to take his prizes and toy with them, paying no mind to the Shark’s words. He had found a plastic bottle for himself that would function as a fine shell. His very own new hiding place, gifted by humans! So he sat in the container and sucked himself into it, using it as best he could to try to snatch up Crab for a late afternoon snack. 

He soon felt the current tossing him aside, for the container was far too light to stick in the sand. He fumbled and bounced like a rock down the stairs, and upon further decision, it was not to his liking. ‘Perhaps this shell is better at hiding,’ Octopus thought, and so he took the plastic container and set out to hide by Crab’s home in the sand. 

Yet, when he tried to hide inside the plastic bottle, Crab only laughed, for the bottle was clear and Crab could see him well. He couldn’t snatch them or catch them by surprise. Instead, they gathered from a safe distance, and laughed at him in the bottle, nicking him with their claws if he tried to grab his snack. Crab laughed for a long while, “You really have made a fool of yourself, Octopus!” 

Yet, Crab stopped laughing soon enough. For up above them and Octopus, came rushing in Porpoise, seeking to take a bite out of either of them. Octopus felt sure he was safe in his shell, human designed and gifted to the sea. So he sat and he braced himself as Porpoise went to snatch him up. Then, much to his horror and surprise, Porpoise’s bite began to crush the bottle with him inside! He was no more protected in the bottle than with only four legs! So he swam out and soon ducked into his home, closing the door until it was safe. 

Octopus was outraged. What good was this shell? He had been tossed around and battered against the sides of the coral by the current, and when he tried to catch Crab, they could see him hiding inside, this shell was no good at all! It couldn’t protect against a bite! It couldn’t hide him! What good was plastic as a hiding place, when a coconut or shell would do just fine? He tossed the device out and decided to check on the other sea creatures. Perhaps, they had better luck than he did. 

But, alas, Poor Fish! He had become entangled in the line he had been given, which now scraped and cut at the sides like a razor. Octopus, acting nimble and quickly, freed the poor creature, but even Fish, with his slow mind, protested, ‘I don’t care for this human stuff at all’ said Fish, and neither did his kin. So, Fish and his school swam off. ‘Perhaps Turtle fared better,’ Octopus thought, and so went off to see the old beast. 

But, alas, when Octopus arrived, Turtle was choking on her gift, unable to eat it. Octopus quickly rushed to free her, letting them breathe once more. ‘That isn’t like a jellyfish at all’ Turtle said, and swam off, dejected. Now, Octopus was suspicious. None of the gifts from the humans had been very good gifts, none at all. So, Octopus swam north, seeking the endless stone that Shark described. 

He traveled long and hard, seeing strange creatures of all shapes and sizes, colors and climates. He saw Penguin and Eel, Urchin, and Gull. Octopus even saw more humans, some were loving, some were cruel, some didn’t know what they were. He wondered if maybe humans sought to have everything because they didn’t have names like Octopus, Crab, Shark and Turtle. In a world of beasts, what was a human supposed to be? The thought dismissed from his mind when he neared the endless rock that Shark told him of. 

Before him he saw a barren land of stone set in the sea, towers breaching up to infinity and billowing thick smog into the sky. Tubes and pipes vomited into the sea, like a great leviathan of hell. It was monstrous and barbaric, and it clustered with noise of every kind. ‘Did the humans know they were doing this?’ Octopus wondered, ‘Surely they must.’ The sight was too much for him to bear, and he left for home. 

Yet, when he arrived, he saw great nets being tossed upon the other fish, and beasts slain to and fro. Octopus ducked into his little helmet where it was safe and hid, locking himself away. When the swaths of sand had cleared, Octopus stared out at the once rich and beautiful reef and saw… white. He hadn’t seen such whiteness before. It was cold, and rough, the coral brittle and scarce. The bog and the sludge had killed them, the smoke blotted out the sky and only the smaller fishes and Crab still skittered about. Turtle, Shark, Porpoise, and everything big enough to be taken, was gone, littering the cresting waves with emptiness and killing the colors Octopus had basked in before. 

Crab called out to Octopus, confused, and Octopus, though the two were predator and prey, abandoned their quarrel to ask what had happened. 

“They took Fish and all their relatives.” Crab said, and Octopus added on top, “They snatched Porpoise in a cage!” 

Their small forms were blown away by another rush of the current when they saw the unthinkable. The pooling blood of the almighty and virtuous Whale, ancient and all powerful, sinking into the depths, its fin and its back having been torn by the whirring of machines up above. Crab and Octopus swam to the giant, red smog filling the air around them, but they were far too small, and far too helpless to stop it. The boats above skirted away with their motors, as the ancient beast fell. 

Octopus didn’t understand what had happened. Perhaps the humans did. They were smart enough to build ships, they were smart enough to harness fire, surely they would have been smart enough to know what happened to his home. So, Octopus took his trinkets and all the metal he could find and began to fiddle with his deep sea suit home with the help of Crab and any other critters left after the human’s arrival, filling the suit with all manner of metal wire and spring, coil and tool, everything that Octopus could admire about humanity, now put into his creation. With the proper placement of his tentacles, Crab making up the hand, and what other creatures who would join them making up the rest, Octopus could get the suit to move like a large puppet, the rest of the sea that was left working together to reach the surface. 

Then, step by step, Octopus turned his home into a mobile one, the thick sand washing off of the suit as he stepped forward, heavy stomps upon the ocean floor. Left foot, then the right, each step shaking as he moved towards the surface. He was like the human explorer Ulysses, stepping out into the unknown on a set Odyssey, destined to return home when the task was done, when he had his answers, but he was not Ulysses exploring the sea as a human, but the sea exploring the human, sloshing with each hefty step, as if the ocean and all life therein embodied the suit as an avatar of some forgotten God or Goddess. Octopus led his suit up and out of the water where the title took him and the rest of the sea into itself. They were Ulysses, voyaging to reclaim their home. 

Ulysses stared out to see humans, curious, confused, alarmed, scared. Ulysses felt the same when they came to their home. But the humans were flourishing, despite their doubts. Up on the surface he saw what the stone leviathan had built, strange devices running to and fro, hefty smoke billowing from everything, false suns held in glass containers as Ulysses tried to take it all in, so much more than they could ever have imagined. What mad enlightenment could this place hold? What secrets? What stories? And yet, he looked upon it and needed to ask only one question. 

"Why is my home dead?” They called out. And soon, many came to answer. Humans of all shapes and all sizes provided a clamor, but Ulysses didn’t care. They asked the avatar of the sea about who sent them, they asked him why they were judging humanity, and still the answer stayed the same, “Why is my home dead?” 

And the humans tried to apologize, and they tried to say they’ll try to be better most every day. Yet, still the question came. 

“Why is my home dead?” 

And again Ulysses called out, and then an answer came when they wouldn’t back down. A plump human, the size of a house, adorned in fine silver and wearing a crown, came out and answered and called out to them. It was the King of all Humans, and it had only one answer, for it was the answer the King of all Humans used whenever it pleased, “Because it is ours.” 

An answer that Ulysses could not stand for. Their suit trembled with anger, about to explode, water gushing out in washes, like the ocean’s might couldn’t even be restrained within the capsule. The sea’s avatar surged in a rage, and they asked, “Who allowed this? Who had the gaul? To proclaim the sea is yours?”

“I did.” said the King, “For I am the King of all Humans. And who are you?” 

“I am Octopus, I am Ulysses, and I am here for the sea. Are you here for all humans?” The explorer asked, set in his virtues like a Knight from long gone. 

“I am here for the King of all Humans, Ulysses for the sea. For they belong as my subjects, and they are mine as I please. As are you, for you’re from my seas.” The King answered, a response that did not bode well with the creatures before him. 

Ulysses owned no land, nor title, nor grace, but still he stood against this monarch’s stubborn gaze. You could not own the entire sea, nor all the creatures to use as you please. And Ulysses realized what made Humans, Human, in contrast to Crab or Octopus or Shark. They had no Shark to snatch them and bite them, no Porpoise to shock them and frighten them, they had only each other, to rule and to smite them. 

A clarity came to the beast, more than the humans, and Octopus realized what Shark really meant. 

“You are too cruel to make mistakes,” Ulysses said to the King, “And too prideful and greedy to amend them. You could make the world better, if you tried, but you’d rather sit on your throne above all. You could save Humans. You could save Fish. You could save Turtle and Porpoise. You could save everyone if you wish. But you don’t, and you won’t. Because of your greed and your pride. You could and you should, but you don’t, and you lie.” 

The King who ruled over all Humans scowled and hissed, a growl in its voice far worse than a beast, and it shouted and declared, “This is treachery and scorn! What treason have you claimed, beast of the depths! For I am the King of Humans, and I own the land and I own the sea. You will bow down and you’ll obey me.” 

But Ulysses did not bow, they didn’t know if they could, for the ocean cannot kneel to anyone. So Ulysses, Octopus, Crab, and creature alike, stared down the King and loomed over it like a wave ready to crash. The monarch was largest among humans, but it was but a blemish before the avatar of the depths, the ire of the ocean came to the shore. And Ulysses said something and spoke for the sea and said it out loud for all humanity, “There’s not one who can control the sea. For it is harsh, and beautiful. And if any of you are harsh and beautiful as well, then you will not stand by as home dies. Lest you forget, when the sea has lost all, so will you, and no King can withstand the endless tide of change coming through.” 

And Ulysses, the avatar of the sea, stepped back into the ocean, leaving humanity to decide such a notion. For the sea was like humanity, it was harsh and beautiful, and it is just as capable of a storm as a breeze. It must be respected, and it must be loved, by all, and for all, lest it take them with ease.