30. The Cosmic Octopus
Rippa had been thinking. She rewatched the VOD of the Q&A stream. She watched the universe creation question and the Renaissance Italy segments on repeat. Something didn’t feel right. She was so sure that Goggles had at some point implied that he had been around before the 16th century.
From the lounge sofa, Rippa turned her head toward the beach. Buttons was in the sand again, playing with the truck.
Sometimes, Rippa wondered if Buttons was on the spectrum. The kid would fill up the truck full with sand, then, crawling on all fours, roll the truck a few feet, her mouth making ‘vroom, vroom’ noises. She would then tilt the truck to empty the load, but this time making ‘beep, beep’ warning sounds. Buttons would then roll the truck back to the starting point and repeat the cycle.
For hours. With a session or two of naps in between.
“You know, Goggles, she really can find joy in small things, can’t she?” said Rippa, still watching the kid do the same thing again and again. “It’s rare in kids these days… or so I hear.”
Goggles came and sat on the sofa across the table. He looked at Buttons. “She likes spectacles, too.”
Rippa turned to face Goggles, but then saw his gaze on Buttons. Something hit her like a truck.
“Goggles?”
“Yes, Miss Rippa?” Goggles turned his gaze to Rippa.
“When Buttons was crying about you being forced to reveal your power, didn’t you say something along the lines of ‘I lived his life and won’t let her be destroyed?’”
Goggles groaned, but did not deny it.
“And I have been thinking…” Rippa was now thinking out loud. “I’m pretty sure that by ‘her,’ you meant the girl. The dead daughter. Which makes him… the father?”
Goggles remained silent.
At that moment, Buttons came to the lounge and sat on the sofa beside Rippa. A maid brought a glass of iced tea for the kid.
“What are you two talking about?” asked Buttons.
“Miss Rippa is about to crack the code,” said Goggles.
“I knew it!” Rippa shouted. “I’m onto something, ain’t I?”
“Oh, oh, what is it?” Buttons was getting excited.
“Gimme a sec,” Rippa gathered her thoughts. “Right! I think I have it. Goggles… is also a brainworm?”
“What?”
Even Goggles seemed surprised. He totally didn’t expect that.
“No?” Rippa was now increasingly uncertain. “I thought Goggles had been a brainworm in the father’s brain. Then he saw the child die… ah wait, but Goggles wasn’t there at the time… and you made the copy, so… argh!” Rippa scratched her head.
“I see, I see,” Buttons nodded. “It isn’t that complicated, Rippa. I was the brainworm in Papa’s mind. But not literally a brainworm because I’m not.”
“Eh?”
“Yeah, really. I hid inside Papa’s mind up until the girl died. That’s when I felt so sad, I wanted him to have his daughter back.”
Rippa digested that information. Somehow, it still fell in line with what she had known about Buttons. The girl died. The father was sad. Buttons wanted him happy. All checkboxes ticked.
“So, what exactly do you mean when you say you hid inside his mind?”
“You know, the usual stuff. Seeing the world through his eyes, hearing his thoughts, reading his mind, and all that.”
Rippa was a little disturbed that Buttons was so casual about it. The heck did she mean by the usual stuff?
“Basically, living the man’s life passively,” Goggles clarified. He was looking at Rippa. “So, naturally, one obvious side effect of that is… Buttons is convinced she is the most precious thing in the entire universe.”
“I am,” said Buttons.
“Ah,” Rippa slowly realized, “because the father’s eyes… wait, hang on!”
“Oh, did you crack the code?” asked Goggles.
“What the fuck did you mean you also lived his life? When?”
“Ah…” Buttons suddenly blushed. “That code…”
Goggles smiled and looked at Buttons’ beet-red face. “Your call, Buttons.”
Buttons fidgeted, hesitated, but then, having made up her mind, took a deep breath. “Right. This is super embarrassing, but Rippa is a friend. But it’s still super embarrassing. Goggles, could you tell her for me, please?”
The butler nodded. He, too, took a deep breath before facing Rippa.
“Miss Rippa, if I remember correctly, during the interview, I answered that I came to be only after Buttons could conceptualize me.”
“Yes, you did.” Rippa nodded and urged him to go on. She had a feeling this was going to be something big.
“So, in a way, I am a jumble of roles. Not an entity.”
“Huh?”
“OK,” Goggles exhaled quickly. “Let me think of something else.” He then closed his eyes and thought for some seconds. “Aha, I have a good one.”
Rippa gulped.
“Consider a gigantic, invisible, cosmic octopus.”
“Huh?” Rippa was still puzzled.
Buttons, on the other hand, seemed to think Goggles was on a good track. “This could work, Goggles,” she encouraged her butler.
“The octopus,” Goggles continued, “one of its tentacles is permanently plugged into this brain,” he pointed at Buttons.
“Okay…” Rippa thought she was slowly getting it.
“One other tentacle is me,” Goggles said.
“Wait, wait—” Rippa was trying to catch up.
But Goggles pressed on. “In essence, we are one. Whatever I do is her doing it and vice versa, for she is I and I am her.”
Rippa made an O-face.
“But we play-pretend that we are not. In fact, we do it so well that even now I am referring to us in plural instead of singular.”
“Please! Wait!” Rippa raised her voice. This was too much to handle in one go. She stood up and paced around the lounge.
“You mean, you are one, but split—, no, not split. Split is exclusive.” Rippa was getting there. She suddenly stopped and snapped around to face her two friends.
“Like Gollum?”
Goggles froze. He just looked at Rippa.
Buttons, despite all that embarrassment, could not resist it. She rubbed her hands greedily. “My precious~.”
Goggles shut his eyes and took a very deep breath in.
“Eek!” the kid ran off and hid behind a sofa some distance away.
Goggles opened his eyes again and met Rippa’s. “Miss Rippa, let’s not use that… analogy.” And then, with a great effort, he offered a better analogy. “Let us say that the cosmic octopus is playing sock puppets with its tentacles. That would be Buttons and me.”
***
Rippa was back home. She had wanted to talk to Buttons and Goggles more, but Goggles suddenly had an urgent matter to discuss with his ojousama… something about the President? She suspected he was making up an excuse to avoid talking more about the cosmic octopus, but then again, if Goggles wasn’t real, who was making up the excuse? Buttons?
So, when Goggles said he could do anything Buttons could do… he meant exactly that. It was Rippa who had misunderstood the scope. Buttons really was a literal god, and Goggles happened to have the same power.
‘Buttons…’ Rippa was still trying to wrap her head around the whole thing. Goggles, Madam J.D., Miss Pendrake, and all the maids and the soldiers… ‘None of them were actually there? That was all Buttons playing sock puppets?’ And the kid was so embarrassed to tell Rippa that she had to say it through a ventriloquist act.
She imagined the pocket dimension with everyone gone. The little child living all alone in that unbelievably vast space.
Rippa turned and looked at her anime-figure shelf. Sitting quietly in a corner, half-hidden behind a row of flashy anime characters, was her old Barbie doll.
Memories flooded in. Barbie wasn’t Barbie. It was little Filippa, and little Filippa had gone on many great adventures, slain a horde of zombies, and ridden unicorns.
‘Buttons the little octopus.’
At the time, Filippa had not had Ken. So she had used a Warhammer Space Marine as a stand-in.
‘Oh my god,’ Rippa exhaled slowly. Goggles didn’t come in the 16th century. Nobody did. After three thousand years of being alone, the kid threw another doll into the play. The loneliness hadn’t gone away. It was just shoved under the rug.
Rippa wanted to run back and go hug Buttons.