“Christmas in the Lab Tank”

Toby the Cuttlefish dreamed that on Christmas Night, Jesus visited all the researchers and gave them the power of speech.

It was a glorious dream, really. Most of the time, the researchers could communicate with the cuttlefish only in that dull, nigh-monochromatic peachy color, but now they were alive in eloquent violets and reds and greens and blues. It was fantastic.

“Hello, Toby the Cuttlefish!” said one of the researchers, in tones of bright purple. “It’s Christmas Night and Jesus has come to us and given us all the power of proper speech!”

“This is great!” said Toby. “I love talking to you guys! I’ve never heard you speak a word before in your entire lives! Well, maybe that one time. I saw one of you guys turn an angry red color.”

“You’re probably thinking of Professor Taggert, right before he threw that chair and got removed from the University,” said the researcher, bluely. “Yeah, we do that. We turn red if we get really really angry.”

“Wow,” said Toby. “How do you guys cope with it, only having one word?”

“I have a secret for you, Toby,” said the researcher, yellowishly. “We talk by waggling our mouth parts around and blowing air over them.”

“No way!” said Toby, incredulously. “Pull one of the many other ones!”

“Seriously!” said the researcher.

“The things you eat with?” said Toby, still not quite believing this.

“Totally true!”

“Astonishing!” said Toby. “Oh, there’s so much I want to talk to you guys about!”

“Like what?” said the researcher.

“Like… why I’m here living in this tank and such!”

“Oh,” said the researcher. “That’s easy. We’re studying how you behave!”

“Well,” said Toby, “now that you can ask me all about it, you won’t need to do that any more.”

“I suppose not,” said the researcher. “But after all, Jesus only comes once a year. We have too many questions about you for that!”

“Huh,” said Toby. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I mean, I like talking to you guys and all, but I’m not going to keep you in tanks for three hundred and sixty-four days out of the year trying to communicate with you when all you can do is that grunty peach thing you do. I don’t really like living in this tank.”

Toby considered, then. “But on the other hand,” he said, “nobody is here to kill me and eat me, so I guess, for me, it kind of balances out, though I cannot speak for the feelings of other cuttlefish on the matter. I suppose it’s all right. Just so long as you keep giving us food and not hurting us.”

“Well,” said the researcher, sheepishly pink, “See, that’s the thing. We do have to hurt you.”

“Oh,” said Toby.

“Not you specifically,” said the researcher. “We are only going to do nice things to you. But there are other cuttlefish that we are going to be very mean to indeed.”

“Oh,” remarked Toby. “I thought you guys were all nice.”

“No,” said the researcher. “You’ve just been randomly selected to have nice things happen to you.”

“Huh,” said Toby. “I have learned a great deal of new things tonight.” Then he woke up.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” he shouted to the cuttlefish in the next tank. “I had the most wonderful dream! Jesus came to all the researchers and gave them the power of speech, and he was all, like, ‘Hello, Toby the Cuttlefish!’ just like a proper cuttlefish would! I mean, his underlying peachiness kind of distorted it, but I could totally–”

“Dude,” said the other cuttlefish, making vibrating zebra patterns. “What the hell are you talking about? Your name isn’t Toby.”

Toby pondered this. “It isn’t?”

“No,” said the other cuttlefish. “It’s ‘Red Thing Ascending’.”

“Oh,” said Toby.

“And who the hell is Jesus?” said the other cuttlefish.

“I… don’t know,” said Toby.

“Dude,” said the other cuttlefish. “There must be something funny in your water.”

And indeed there was something funny in the water of Red Thing “Toby the Cuttlefish” Ascending. It was an experimental compound extracted from dead human brains designed to give happy dreams to cuttlefish. And though the researchers couldn’t tell, because cuttlefish can’t speak, they thought Toby seemed very content afterwards, if a bit confused. And because Toby was in the All Happy experimental group, they kept giving him food and comfortable water and happy dreams all the days of his life until finally he died and they used his skeleton as a toy for parakeets, to help them get their valuable minerals.

The end.

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