ORIGINS: We were on a roll and we didn’t want to part ways with those seahorses yet. So, we decided to tinker with their tails. An elephant here, an octopus and a squid there.
If someone is to blame it’s the elephant, not the seahorse. I am hungry all the time. I don’t think happiness is the word for what I crave, but I am always left needing more, more, more, as if my life depended on it, and I can’t stop. Why? Because the elephant won’t forget the first taste he got. The best. That first taste that was too magical for his own good, and inevitably turned into a curse. The elephant compares everything that touches my tongue to it. The words I speak. The air I breathe. The warmth of every kiss. Until grey is the only color left in my world, and I can’t help craving something that doesn’t taste like dust. But that is all I have. Because I am a child that doesn’t know how to stop. I still believe in magic. I can’t go to sleep without catching a moth first, and dusting down its wings, trying to make the magic work one more time. Just one more time. Because my elephant won’t let me forget that there used to be color in my world, and that is all my seahorse wants to feed on.
I was born a seahorse. I was brought up in a coral reef. Surrounded by vivid colors that never wandered, that never dissolved in seawater and mixed like the word watercolors led me to believe. Each color had its place, and they never traded. Blood was red. The sky was blue. And even if that was not always true, even if some things that were larger than life could sometimes steal a touch or two, it didn’t take me long to see where the limits were. Which things couldn’t be yellow, and which things couldn’t be green. Maybe that is why I grew into a squid. I craved darkness. Ink. The freedom to color outside the lines, using whichever colors spoke to my heart. I knew that the sea wouldn’t change, and I refused to waste my life wishing it would. Rather than becoming a star-nosed mole living underground, with its eyes closed to everything but that useless, passive wish, I did my best to grow into a squid. And get my hands on the ink that would allow me to forget everything I had seen and color my world anew.
I won’t lie, there was a time when all I wanted was to blend in. I was a child. I felt like a seahorse among fish. No matter where I looked, everybody seemed to swim better than I did, and suddenly a hollow appeared in the thing that had been solid just a moment ago. In that thing that wore my name. Where doubts should never have been allowed in. In that thing that I should always have been able to love. Without thinking. Suddenly there was a hollow, and hunger became my whole world. Blending in became more important than breathing. I watched. I tried to learn. But at the end of the day, I was just a failure of an octopus, that never quite managed to swim like everybody else. And I don’t know where to go from there. I am not a child anymore. But that hollow is still there. And I am afraid of becoming a snail next. Of needing more than blending into a thousand faceless fish. Of needing something closer to my heart. I am afraid of needing a home more than I need to eat. Because I can already see myself failing at being a snail too.
Do you know that there is one thing, above all others, that I don’t want to become? An echidna. But that is what I am being raised as. All these quills full of hatred, that one day I am supposed to pass down. When I finally grow into my name. When I become a mother to a thousand monsters with eyes just like mine. Like my mother’s before me. But I don’t know what else to become. I thought about becoming an elephant. About being strong enough to say no. I thought that if only I managed to break free, maybe I would be able to lead my loved ones down a different path. But I know what remembering does, how easily grudges can take over, leading you to a new scenery, where the only difference is that the hatred has been sown on the other side of the road. I thought about becoming a seahorse. About living in a coral reef surrounded by beautiful colors. I thought that if only I managed to outnumber the hatred, maybe love would stand a chance. But I know what hunger does, where it leads, and how easily love can turn into something else. I thought, and thought, and thought, but I couldn’t find an escape. And now, now I just wish I didn’t have to grow into anything at all.
If I had to choose? Between the myriad of colors of a coral reef and the grey of a dusty path? I would choose the elephant, and I wouldn’t even take a minute to hesitate. Why? Because I know how fragile most things in this life are, how easily the colors wash off. Wonder. Joy. Enthusiasm. Love. My memory is too good, and given the choice, I would spare myself the disappointment, each and every time.
What? Why would I choose the elephant? Memories were what kept me from living my life. I got rid of them as soon as I could. Those, and every other thing I had grown attached to. The colors change every day, and since they are not birds, there is no reason to cage them. I have always preferred the sea anyway. All those broken waves and the ever-changing foam that disappears without a trace. Just like a seahorse, I am too hungry to settle for yesterdays, and I hope the day never comes when I force a color to keep singing the same song for me over and over again.
Do you know what I have running through my veins? Ink. But I am not a squid. That is not my name. All I ever wanted was to bring my words to life. I never dreamed in color. I never dreamed in images. I don’t remember a night when I didn’t dream in words. Black. Against the white emptiness of my life. I wanted to create something that wouldn’t disappoint me. But even after bleeding out and running out of words, I didn’t manage to outrun my name. The edges of the page. Those confines. Merciless and cutting. That don’t let me forget that I am a seahorse, and I will never be good enough.
I am not a good swimmer, but who cares? I may have that insignificant detail in common with seahorses, but it’s not enough to bring me down, or make me give up and change my name. I will call myself a squid as long as there is ink staining my hands. Because life is a journey, not a destination. Haven’t you ever heard that? It was never about making my dreams come true. What made everything meaningful and worthwhile was the fact that I gave it my all. That I never stopped until I ran out of ink. And even then, I never regretted the name I chose for myself.
Why do you only think in black and white? Why can’t you give me a third choice? I don’t want to be an octopus and spend my life blending in. But that doesn’t mean that I would be willing to devour everything and everyone else, like a hungry seahorse, until I finally stood alone, with nothing and no one to compare myself with. I don’t want to be unique. I just want to be myself. And I don’t see why, in your monochrome world, it has to come at the expense of everything and everyone else.
It’s not the first time you ask this question, is it? You can tell me the truth, has anyone ever chosen the octopus? Doesn’t every body come equipped with a self-preservation instinct? I, for one, don’t want to disappear. I would hate to be replaced. And that is what would happen if I blended in and became just another spare part, isn’t it? Sooner or later, I would disappear without a trace. And if that is the case, I would rather leave a tooth mark or two behind.
If it was a choice between being a clumsy seahorse or a clumsy elephant, I think I would choose the seahorse. I wouldn’t understand how this life works either way. I would feel out of place, not knowing the right thing to say. Things would fall from my hands, and they would break. Relationships. Dreams. But if I were a seahorse, at least I wouldn’t become one of those things. I know how elephants have been used over the years. Wars. Circuses. Do I have to go on? At least if I were a seahorse no one would break me.
I wouldn’t mind being either of them. Anything would be better than being a child. But I think you got it wrong. I wouldn’t feel out of place, I would feel right at home. Because I wouldn’t compare myself to any fish or birds. If I were a seahorse, there would still be other seahorses that swam just as clumsily as me. And if I were an elephant, I also wouldn’t be the only heavy-boned creature leaving deep footprints in the ground. I would see myself reflected in others, and that is more than I can say now. Every other child seems to already know the rules of this game. And I don’t know where to look. I don’t want to be alone. Lost. So, I would gladly trade places with a seahorse or with an elephant. Before I have no choice but to call a dog my best friend.