There was a boy once who grew up in Missouri, he had tentacles. At full length they were at least a foot longer than his arms, but he could scrunch them up into smaller stumps if neccesary. They were like two long, thick, dry tongues that stuck out of his sides right in the middle of his ribcage. When he was born the doctor said they weren't hurting him, and trying to remove them when he was that small would be dangerous. This was the fifties, you know. And as he grew older the tentacles became more and more a part of the boy's life.
The tentacles were a brownish color a few shades darker than the rest of the boy's skin. They had no bones, they were nothing but muscle in a casing of leathery skin. On ocassions when he had to dress up he would cross his tentacles across his chest like two bandoliers, and it would look quite becoming. When he wanted to he could shorten them and scuttle around on all sixes when playing, and all the other children would laugh and think it was the neatest thing and how neat it would be to have tentacles too.
Funny how he never once was called a freak.
Funny how when they were older none of those kids who thought it would be neat to have tentacles ever got drunk and found the boy and tried to cut them off.
Funny that instead of being disgusted the boy's first time asked him to have sex with the tentacles and she said it was the best thing ever.
The boy went to Vietnam. When he was joining the Army the physician accused him of trying to get a section 8 by having tentacles. You kids make me sick trying to get out of serving your country any way you can think of. You can't pull this one over on me, did you really think I would fall for this? Get your ass up and cough when I tell you to.
The boy went to Vietnam. His parents were proud and terrified. They couldn't wait to see him come home, getting some award no doubt, looking perfectly grand in his uniform (slightly altered of course to allow him to cross his tentacles across himself like bandoliers which would impress everybody).
The boy went to Vietnam. He was in Special Forces because of his tentacles. See, he was able to fire three guns at a time instead of just one. He could wrap each tentacle around an M-16 and pull the trigger with the very tip. He usually just fought with two, though. The Army liked him, since the Army was very into freaking out Charlie, and a tentacled soldier did a very good job of it. The boy did well, the Army said. The Army had their own tentacles around the tentacled boy.
The boy did not come back from Vietnam.
The boy was killed in an air strike. Simple as that. He and four other men were buried under a flaming blanket of jellied gasoline. Napalm is an amazing thing, like a huge living flame, burning the life out everything. When the remains of the five officers were finally found they couldn't tell which one was the tentacled boy until they checked dental records. The tentacles had no bones, and didn't change his skeleton. After every scrap of life was burned out of the boy he was just like everyone else. The boy was sent home. His parents couldn't recognize him without his tentacles. There wasn't much left, but you would have thought they could tell. But no. The war had stripped all identity from the very bones of their son.
Just like everyone else.
Back to the Stories page.