Today marks the second anniversary of the most momentous event in zoological history. Twenty thousand leagues and two fateful years ago, beneath the briny waves of the Atlantic ocean, marine biologists discovered an eight meter long cephalopod. Jokingly, and since all research specimens require a name, the scientists called their quarry Lord Fuzzledumpkin III Esq.
“We don’t know why they picked that name,” recalled Dr. Elijah Smith, on-shore director of the research project, tears welling at the corner of his eyes. “Damnit, why did they have to go and do that?”
Their jest, as pointed out by Dr. Smith, was not appreciated by Lord Fuzzledumpkin III Esq., which by happenstance was in fact the squid’s given name.
Though the crew’s final, panicked transmission was garbled and largely incoherent, shocking video feeds revealed a Lovecraftian frenzy of tentacles tearing the hull apart amidst horrified screams. While the video was instantly hailed as a classic of the genre in Japan, garnering its own cult following, the incident represented a near-instantaneous break in the then-nascent human-cephalopod relations.
By hollowing out his shipmates, team captain Dr. Rusty “Rustagor” Hodges was able to fashion a crude decompression chamber and survive the flailing and terrible wrath of Fuzzledumpkin.
“I ate the paper duck. His ink caught in my throat and I wrapped my face in bacon,” commented the asylum-dwelling Hodges, weeks after the incident and in a rare moment of lucidity.
Months passed, and the nation was gripped by what would later be known as “cephalopod fever”–not to be confused with encephalitis which was also experiencing an unprecedented peak in it’s popularity at the time. Squid pants, squid pens, squid adhesive medical strips and Volkswagen’s wildly successful KalmarAuto–all burned off store shelves like uncut heroin from the back of a nubile squid.
“It was a glorious, golden age for fashion,” reflected SquiDee, androgenous fashion magnate and designer of the hugely lucrative Squid Pants. “It was a wonderful time for all. Save maybe that poor crewman who survived the attack.”
“Bob’s flagellant monkey sputum,” recalled Hodges, adding thoughtfully, “bee’s knees.”
In fact, it would be six long months before humanity would once again feel the tentacular squeeze of the squid’s embrace.
On December 26, 2006, off the coast of Antigua, an envoy for the squid empire emerged. The envoy, captained by the small but highly decorated Tentacle-Kommander Bliggenson, put forth a unilateral proclamation that the holiday ‘Boxing Day’ would henceforth be known as ‘Squidtober Fest.’ The people rejoiced at the annulment of a holiday that had recently fallen into disfavour as “indulgent” and “functionally deficient.”
“Drink deeply of this hallowed brine,” proclaimed Tentacle-Kommander Bliggenson, his beak clattering like an epic castanet–an instrument with unexpected popularity because of cephalopod fever. “Yea, and verily as Tubbins slew the great whales, and Blubbamuck before him, so too shall we disperse the ink of intolerance and ignorance, replacing it instead with the ink of TOTAL SUBJUGATION!”
“The squids are benevolent!” he added, thrashing his tentacles wildly and crushing many of the cheering onlookers into salty paste.
Thus it was that the glorious reign of the Cephalius Empire–not to be confused with the Syphilis Empire, which also enjoyed a parallel but unrelated period of success–began, their tentacles are our strength and their beaks clacking always for justice.
Tentacle-Kommander Bliggenson left us with an important message that day, a message of hope, a hope concurrent with despair that can only be wrought of tyranny; may the cephalocracy rule for thousands of years, gnashing always the whales of resistance between the beak of inky justice!