The Saddest Octopus

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that there had been Shenanigans up in the Northern Domicile.  This is because the apartment I had been living in got infested with bed bugs and we all had to evacuate and the menagerie was quarantined and it was all really messy and I ended up slightly homeless and spent a few months occupying the couch of the incredibly generous WMPT and EHC.  Magick, Seal, Gilly, Plouie, and Ilari came with me.  I am still amazed that they were willing to look after us for so long.  It's a good thing Hrithik went into quarantine with the others or they might not have been.

Anyway, so while I was there, WMPT went to the Museum of Natural History and rescued an octopus.  He and EHC seem to have a penchant for taking in distressed stray creatures, I guess.  The poor octopus was pretty distressed; it didn't even talk when he first brought it in.  It would just look at you with these huge tragic eyes.  WMPT asked me to take it in, because he knows I have a menagerie and hoped it would feel at home.  He and EHC have a menagerie too, but theirs is full of eldritch creatures (whereas I have only one eldritch creature in mine) and he was concerned that they'd be too much for the poor traumatised octopus to handle.  I concurred.  I don't think I've ever seen anything quite so distressed as this poor octopus.  I started thinking of him as the Saddest Octopus because he wouldn't tell us his name or anything.  He'd just look at us with these huge doleful eyes.

The Saddest Octopus -- not the best picture, but look at those tragic eyes

The Saddest Octopus is at something of a disadvantage in my menagerie because he's the only invertebrate, so I carefully put him with other sea creatures in hopes that he'd be able to find some common ground to talk about.  He doesn't really talk much, though.  Whatever has happened to him shook him up pretty bad.

Fortunately for him, we happen to have a world-class psychotherapist among us.  Ilari is really good with trauma victims, it turns out, so he's been working with the Saddest Octopus, and I am pleased to report that after several months we've managed to get the Saddest Octopus to talk to us a little bit.  Only a little bit, but that much constitutes considerable progress, so we are quite hopeful that he might end up okay.

We don't know much about what happened to him yet, and Ilari, who knows more, isn't telling because of confidentiality and all.  But we've learned the Saddest Octopus's real name, and once you hear the story of his name, you'll have some idea as to why he's so very sad.  I mean, even the poor thing's name is traumatic.

The Saddest Octopus is named Tollemache-Tollemache Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh.... or possibly Tollemache-Tollemache Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh.  That is the tragedy: he really doesn't know which.  His mother was a Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh, and his father was a Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh, and when they went to hyphenate their names, they really could not agree which of them should come first.  Should their son be a Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh or a Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh?

Although he hasn't directly talked about it, it's pretty clear that the Saddest Octopus was very deeply affected by this debate.  His parents fought over his surname fiercely for a couple of years and then went through a very bitter divorce over it; he clearly blames himself, and now he can't even give his name to people because he doesn't want to have to take sides in the matter and therefore the poor guy doesn't even know what his name is!  Can you imagine?

Now, it's pretty clear that the name wasn't really the problem for the Saddest Octopus's parents.  It was symbolic of much larger issues in their relationships.  His mother's family, the Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaughs, is working class, while his father's family, the Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaughs, is very wealthy, so his mother got a lot of slurs from his father's family and she never thought he supported her enough; he, in turn, eventually started trying to make her feel inferior.  She wasn't a Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh for nothing -- her family is known for being pretty tough -- so she fought back.  Apparently she won a pretty decent chunk of her ex-husband's assets in the divorce proceedings.  But the poor Saddest Octopus still blames himself.  Children are like that: they blame themselves for their parents' issues and demons.  It's really hard to work through all of that.

So that's the very beginning of the story of the Saddest Octopus.  Hopefully, as he gets more comfortable with all us freaky vertebrates, he'll tell us more about himself, and maybe even become a little less sad.