The Unexcitable Exciting Life of the Argonaut

Through the blurry glass of a very expensive aquarium, a pale-purple argonaut watches, in sheer horror, of the new guest couple staying in the very expensive hotel suite where her outrageously pricey aquarium home resides in the wall facing the bed.

“Already two new bloody mammals?” she asks herself.

“All the last couple did was shag, shit, and smile and wave as if their time and attention meant something to me.”

The argonaut turns towards a golf-ball sized rock with badly drawn eyes and a smile resting within a bed of neatly cropped green kelp and algae-covered pebbles.

“Oh, Fabio. This demands conquest, I believe,” she says towards her smiling friend.

“Unless you think these ones will be more mannerly, hm?”

The rock just smiles, as is its only capability.

“True. Your judge of character is paramount, indeed, Fabio,” she responds to the rock named Fabio.

The couple giggle and caress each other, lean onto themselves, then drop onto the king-sized, heart-shaped bed with its quilted silk comforter which wrinkles with their every movement.

“Wait, Fabio… I think they’re smogging! EW!” she says, her tentacles retracting into her transparent shell, and a sound of revulsion coming from her.

“To think I trusted your intuition for even a second! Blegh,” she brings Fabio against her flesh.

“Once again, we need to shield our virgin eyes from their ritualism, Fabio.”

Fabio’s face becomes slightly smeared from her touches. The argonaut pushes herself up towards a lit opening at the top of the aquarium. The water is clear and the bluest of blues - as if thousands of sapphires had been melted then poured into the great aquarium. She passes hanging miniature Mayan temples and an automated cleaning robot shaped like a nurse shark.

“Poser,” she says at it, followed by an attempt at a raspberry.

The light from the aquarium’s ceiling hole shines brighter as she nears it until her head pokes out of the water and joins the warm and bright terrarium. The argonaut stares at a sleeping Russian tortoise in his home of red sand, miniature Egyptian pyramids, tiny realistic palms, and a relatively small mountain of golf-ball sized jagged rocks behind him.

In the terrarium’s center is his lake and cleverly disguised passageway to the argonaut’s aquarium home.

“Mumbo!” the argonaut loudly whispers. She splashes water towards the sleeping tortoise, its wetness barely making any sound and reaching very little distance.

“Mumbo Jumbo!” she yells.

The now-groggy tortoise slowly opens one eye and grunts.

“Oh, good, you’re awake. There are new guests in the suite, and they’re smogging, possibly shagging, so Fabio and I are going to put the blinds up, so to speak, in the aquarium, and we wouldn’t mind any help,” she says in a single breath.

The Russian tortoise named Mumbo Jumbo grunts again and closes his eye, returning to his slumber.

“Fine,” she says with a grunt.

“Well, at least drop another one of your rocks down below,” she says while moving Fabio away from their conversation then whispers, “just in case things go awry again - if you know what I mean, right, buddy ol’ pal?”

Mumbo Jumbo grunts, his eyes remain shut, and then he snores loudly.

“Bah, always the same with you!” the argonaut says.

She submerges and follows a familiar path within her aquarium. The odd octopus and swirly-faced rock travel past exotic flora featuring heart-shaped, bright green leaves and colorful coral reefs breeding a pseudo-luminescence from the terrarium light above, their bright shades complement the argonaut’s purple hue.

“I know what you’re thinking, Fabio, and you’re crazy,” the argonaut says as she continues swimming past her miniature wonders.

Fabio remains still in her grasp, his face now a black blur.

“I can’t lose you, too. You can’t, you mustn’t!”

She stops in her path, brings Fabio to her face and says, “Fabio, my closest mate, we will sing your name in the stars.”

In front of her is a ventilation shaft humming along with the oxygen bubbles that come out of it. She pops it open as if it’s routine for her, wiggles out of her shell, then squeezes inside, its size as large as five Fabios molded together. They travel only a short distance before reaching a fan lacking any tarnish. It’s brand new, and where it has been fitted shows scratches and marks from damage and replacement.

“It’s for the greater good, Fabio. I can’t stand those mammals and their way of shagging. It’s archaic!” she says with a mixture of sadness and disgust.

She brings Fabio towards the fan carefully and locks the small turbine in place. It struggles to turn, and its screws bend with the metal plating around it until it heaves and stops.

“A true patriot for the greater good,” she says with a salute of a tentacle.

After some time…

“You are all amazing,” the argonaut says to the coral reefs.

“The algae,if not already, will scare off that ragged couple and hopefully give us peace for more than just a day.”

The coral reefs - as they usually do - tend to themselves and remain silent.

“Always a tough crowd, my goodness,” says the argonaut.

Algae blanket the aquarium glass, their vibrant greens cover the inorganic marinescape and float around the murky water. Even the cleaning bot fails to sustain itself, its metal chrome now a moss-like exhaust shark which only floats.

The mammals past the glass seem to be gone, and the argonaut is in her own bliss. She nestles on the soft algae and kelp floor, letting out an exhausted breath as she enjoys the greenery around her.

A faint echo of a plop is heard from above and, without any surprise on her face, she watches a golf-ball sized rock float down right beside her. She reaches around her ink sac with a tentacle, leaving its tip a deep black. She paints a badly-drawn face on it and relishes in her self-proclaimed artistry.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Fabio!” she says to the rock.

“Our mission was a clear success, and we, hopefully, won’t be distured for some time, my friend.”

Moments later, a blurry chatter is heard outside of the aquarium, the roar of vacuums and the loud remarks of the cleaners’ disgust by the guests’ uncleanliness fills the aquarium.

“These ones had a scat liking,” says a cleaner’s voice.

“It’s always the rich ones,” says another.

“The aquarium’s dirty again, Malva!” says the first.

“Bloody fucking hell, maintenance cleaned it two days ago,” replies the second, Malva.

“The mollusk probably bollocksed it up itself,” she continues.

The two laugh together and the first lady says, “And my husband and I make sweet love on the daily!”

They burst out laughing and continue their cleaning along with their chatter.

“Wankers, the lot of ‘em,” says the argonaut, and she returns to her own sublime of talking rocks, sabotage, and her incredible imagination.