Glasset

På den anden morgen bragte Chiara et glas til Pastas akvarium. Glasset havde et skruelåg. Indeni var der en levende krabbe.

On the second morning, Chiara brought a glass jar to Pasta's tank. The jar had a screw lid. Inside was a live crab.

Chiara holdt glasset over vandet. Pasta kiggede op. En arm strakte sig langsomt langs siden af akvariet.

Chiara held the jar above the water. Pasta watched. One arm uncurled and stretched along the side of the tank.

Chiara lod glasset falde ned i vandet. Det sank langsomt. Pasta sprang ikke frem. Blæksprutter, sagde Chiara, springer ikke. De observerer først.

Chiara dropped the jar into the water. It sank slowly. Pasta did not lunge. Octopuses, Chiara said, are not lungers. They are observers first.

Polly sad på kanten af akvariet. Krabben kravlede mod glasset inde i glasset. Pasta rørte glasset med en arm. Hendes sugekopper havde to hundrede sanseceller hver. "En blækspruttearm smager alt, den rører ved," sagde Chiara.

Polly perched on the tank rim. The crab scuttled against the glass inside the jar. Pasta touched the jar with one arm. Her suckers had two hundred sensory cells each. "An octopus arm tastes everything it touches," Chiara said.

Pasta greb glasset med en anden arm. De to arme drejede det langsomt. En tredje arm kom rundt om bagsiden for at undersøge låget.

Pasta gathered the jar with a second arm. The two arms turned it slowly. A third arm came around the back to explore the lid.

Blæksprutter har åbnet skruelågsglas i laboratorier siden 1950'erne. Første gang tager det normalt ti eller femten minutter. De tænker ikke i trin. De lader sugekopperne føle gevindene og drejer låget i den retning, gevindene trækker.

Octopuses have been opening screw-top jars in labs since the 1950s. The first time, it usually takes ten or fifteen minutes. They are not thinking in steps. They are letting the suckers feel the threads and turning the lid the way the threads pull.

Pasta drejede låget en halv omgang. Så en til. Låget sprang af. Krabben skyndte sig ud i det åbne vand.

Pasta turned the lid one half-rotation. Then another. The lid popped free. The crab scrambled out into the open water.

Den nåede ikke langt. Pastas fjerde arm var allerede krøllet ved glassets åbning. Krabben forsvandt ind i blækspruttens næb.

It did not get far. Pasta's fourth arm was already curled at the jar's mouth. The crab disappeared into the octopus's beak.

Chiara skrev noget på en blok. "Tre minutter og toogfyrre sekunder. Hun bliver hurtigere. Første gang vi gav hende et glas, tog det hende elleve minutter."

Chiara wrote something on a clipboard. "Three minutes forty-two seconds. She is getting fast. The first time we gave her a jar, it took her eleven minutes."

Pasta vendte tilbage til sin rørspiral. Hendes arme viklede sig omkring hende selv.

Pasta returned to her coil of pipe. Her arms wrapped around herself.

Blæksprutter er meget mærkelige, fortalte Chiara Polly. De er tættere beslægtet med en snegl end med noget med en rygrad. De har tre hjerter. Deres blod er blåt, fordi det bærer ilt med kobber i stedet for jern. De lever kun tre til fem år i naturen. Pasta var allerede to. Hun ville lære alt, hun nogensinde ville vide, i den tid, hun havde tilbage.

Octopuses are very strange, Chiara told Polly. They are more closely related to a snail than to anything with a backbone. They have three hearts. Their blood is blue, because it carries oxygen with copper instead of iron. They live only three to five years in the wild. Pasta was already two. She would learn everything she would ever know in the time she had left.