"Lord A., dude, there's, like, a call for you." Rob, my lab assistant, set the hooked telephonic transceiver upon the desk next to my tank.

"hello?" A small voice emitted from the transceiver.

"ROB," I called, "WHO IS TO HAVE CALLED UPON ME?" But he paused not, walking slump-shouldered from the lab. The elevator made its ding, then shushed him away.

"hello? why is it so loud?"

I paused and considered the emptiness of the laboratory, the rows of glowing screens, the distant fading summer sunshine.

"why is it that no one can find you?" The voice was small and delicate.

"I AM HERE."

"why is it that no one can find you?"

"I AM HERE."

"how do i find you?"

"I AM HERE."

"are you a fish or a mammal?"

"I AM NEITHER."

"how many times bigger are you than a pencil?"

"ROB!" I called, knowing there could be no answer, yet calling all the same.

The voice rose in pitch, but not in volume. "pencil," she said again.

"LITTLE JARWAUN? MY DEAREST TYPIST, ARE YOU AVAILABLE?" Still no answer.

"where is california?"

"I AM NOT IN CALIFORNIA."

"where is california?"

"IT IS BEYOND THE VALE OF SLEEP."

"do you like yellow?"

"ROB? MR. LEEKS? MOLLY?"

"i like yellow. yellow smells like seabirds in the sky."

In that moment a whish flared up inside me: For to have a long robotic arm attached to the front of my tank, to crush and destroy the tiny black telephonic transceiver, to forever snuff the terrifying voice which sank in volume while escalating in pitch.

"what is it like to be a squid?"

And then the line was dead. I had no chance to answer, but I was left considering that very question.

The phone hummed, and then after a long while of humming it began to ululate its disconnect tone. Then an automated operator warned that what I had not dialed could not be completed, and advised that if I might like to call an individual, I should disconnect and re-attempt. She repeated the bonking disconnect tone. Then there was silence. In the silence there was only me, and there was the final question, and there was the savage yellow light streaming from the cloudless August sky. Floating in the suffocating air of the lab were tiny motes of dust, limned and seemingly ensnared in the searing summerlight.

What is it like to be a squid?

One hour later, Rob wandered in and sat down at his terminal. He typed about within the Internets for several moments, until finally I called his attention to me and my plight.

"ROB?"

"Yo," he said without turning away from The HisSpace.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, ROB?"

"Yo," he still gazed at the flashing lights and the gyrations of an engiffed animation. "I was, like, editing this poem for a bud of mine who lives in East Lansing."

I reflected on this answer, struggling to make sense of it, to reconcile each of its words with any sense of my and Rob's shared history.

"THIS REQUIRED LEAVING THE LAB?"

"It's a good day out: sun, breeze. I wanted to sit by the river and work that shit out. Our office, like, fucking backs up to the fucking river, but we never go and chill with it. What's up with that?"

"AND THIS... TASK... IT REQUIRED AN HOUR OF YOUR ATTENTION?"

"Guess," he said, still staring at the tiny pictures upon the His and My Space. "Villanelle is some whack shit to pick apart, right? Takes a minute."

"I SEE."

"Yo," Robert replied, nodding.

The sound of the small voice echoed in my thoughts, and it made my skin flash red, then purple, then brown, and to ripple and pulse with a cyclopean terror not heard of or described by any creature of the Deep, or of Darkest Space. I shuddered in the water, and I peered out into what had become and eerily blue sky.

"ROB, IN THE FUTURE, I WOULD LIKE YOU OR SOMEONE TO REMAIN PRESENT FOR THE DURATION OF ANY CALLS I MIGHT RECEIVE."

Rob pursed his lips and leaned back in his chair. Then he leaned forward, still staring upon the entubed grandeur of the Internets. He nodded.

"Yo," he said.