Daydreams of an Octopus & Other Stories

By Tahir Shah

Like an expertly cut gemstone that catches the light, Daydreams of an Octopus & Other Stories is a dazzling homage to the teaching tales contained in the great treasury of A Thousand and One Nights.

 

Written to be appreciated in innumerable ways and on many levels, this elegant collection is designed to be read and reread - for only then will the volume's magic come alive.

 

Regarded as one of the foremost storytellers of the age, Tahir Shah believes that tales - whether ancient or contemporary - have the ability to help us perceive the world around us with new clarity and with fresh eyes.

 

The author of more than fifty books embracing fiction, fantasy, travel, and academic research, Shah is descended from a long line of storytellers. His father - the Sufi thinker Idries Shah - revealed life lessons to him through stories, explaining that folktales are a repository of ancient knowledge that forms an instruction manual to the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Secretum Mundi Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Jul 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781914960697

Book preview

By Tahir Shah:

Travel

Trail of Feathers

Travels With Myself

Beyond the Devil’s Teeth

In Search of King Solomon’s Mines

House of the Tiger King

In Arabian Nights

The Caliph’s House

Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Journey Through Namibia

Novels

Jinn Hunter: Book One – The Prism

Jinn Hunter: Book Two – The Jinnslayer

Jinn Hunter: Book Three – The Perplexity

Hannibal Fogg and the Supreme Secret of Man

Hannibal Fogg and the Codex Cartographica

Casablanca Blues

Eye Spy

Godman

Paris Syndrome

Timbuctoo

Midas

Zigzagzone

Nasrudin

Travels With Nasrudin

The Misadventures of the Mystifying Nasrudin

The Peregrinations of the Perplexing Nasrudin

The Voyages and Vicissitudes of Nasrudin

Nasrudin in the Land of Fools

Teaching Stories

The Arabian Nights Adventures

Scorpion Soup

Tales Told to a Melon

The Afghan Notebook

The Caravanserai Stories

Ghoul Brothers

Hourglass

Imaginist

Jinn’s Treasure

Jinnlore

Mellified Man

Skeleton Island

Wellspring

When the Sun Forgot to Rise

Outrunning the Reaper

The Cap of Invisibility

On Backgammon Time

The Wondrous Seed

The Paradise Tree

Mouse House

The Hoopoe’s Flight

The Old Wind

A Treasury of Tales

Daydreams of an Octopus & Other Stories

Miscellaneous

The Reason to Write

Zigzag Think

Being Myself

Research

Cultural Research

The Middle East Bedside Book

Three Essays

Anthologies

The Anthologies

The Clockmaker’s Box

The Tahir Shah Fiction Reader

The Tahir Shah Travel Reader

Edited by

Congress With a Crocodile

A Son of a Son, Volume I

A Son of a Son, Volume II

Screenplays

Casablanca Blues: The Screenplay

Timbuctoo: The Screenplay

Secretum Mundi Publishing Ltd

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United Kingdom

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DAYDREAMS OF AN OCTOPUS & OTHER STORIES

VERSION 20052022

© TAHIR SHAH

Tahir Shah asserts the right to be identified as the Author of the Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Visit the author’s website at:

Tahirshah.com

ISBN 978-1-914960-69-7

This is a work of fiction. Characters are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons – living or dead – is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Contents

Daydreams of an Octopus

The Old Wind

A Treasury of Tales

Mouse House

When the Sun Forgot to Rise

The Wondrous Seed

On Backgammon Time

The Cap of Invisibility

The Paradise Tree

The Hoopoe’s Flight

King of the Jinn

The Destiny Ring

Daydreams of an Octopus

ONCE UPON A

time, in a cleft between the rocks, at the very bottom of the sea, there lived a family of octopuses.

The father of the household prided himself on his sombre, sensible nature, as did his wife, and almost all of their eight little offspring.

Through long, shaded days, and even longer shadowy nights, they all sat about, discussing sensible plans and level-headed ambitions.

From time to time, the smallest of the children, Octavius, would blurt out something funny he had overheard at school. No sooner had such a remark been uttered, than it was torn to smithereens by his father.

‘I’ll have no silliness in this home!’ he would cry. ‘Silliness never helped anyone get on in the world!’

As time passed, the first seven children learned to be more and more sensible, and ever more orderly.

At home, they would cover the walls of the cleft with geometric diagrams and mathematical calculations.

At school, where they were model students, each one was more sombre and sensible than the last.

As a result, the father and mother octopuses were regarded with respect by all the other creatures living in the cleft. Applauded for raising such practical members of the community, they were universally commended for bringing honour to the bottom of the sea.

The first seven siblings may well have excelled, but the little one, Octavius, was quite different from the rest.

One especially dark evening, when the children all went to bed, Father Octopus let out a pained sigh.

‘He is the smallest in size, but I had hoped that Octavius would be the most sensible octopus ever to have swum the seven seas,’ he intoned. ‘I have taught him to be sombre and sensible like all the others, but he’s making us a laughing stock!’

At school, little Octavius was constantly reminded by the teacher how he hailed from a long line of sensible octopuses.

‘You will be a great octopus like your brothers and sisters,’ she said. ‘Because it’s in your genes to think straight, and to be as sensible as sensible can be.’

Octavius thanked the teacher courteously.

‘But I would like to juggle six zebra-striped tentacle fish,’ he whispered.

The class looked at the student and burst out laughing.

‘You mean that you want to be clever like your brothers and sisters?’ the teacher corrected.

‘No, no,’ Octavius answered perkily, ‘I want to be a sideways snorble-worple fish, with snorble-worple fins, and a great big snorble-worple snout!’

Again, the other children laughed.

And again, the teacher grimaced.

Next day, Octavius announced in class that he planned to be swallowed by a whale, so that he could tickle its tonsils.

The day after that, he spun round and around, declaring himself to be a ballet dancer from the Oceanic Opera of Obscurity.

On the fourth day, Father and Mother were called to appear at the school. Once they had been led into the principal’s study, the cold, hard truth was delivered:

‘Little Octavius has a certain condition,’ the educator explained.

Father Octopus juddered.

‘To what condition do you allude?’

‘A condition that prevents a sombre and sensible nature.’

Mother Octopus broke down and wept.

‘But we had such high hopes for the boy. He was to be the most level-headed octopus that ever swam the seas.’

The principal sighed.

‘Alas,’ he said, ‘in such circumstances, your expectations have no hope of being realized.’

Before bed that evening, little Octavius was summoned by his parents.

Father Octopus spoke:

‘You will never be the octopus we wanted you to be,’ he said.

‘I want to climb out of the sea and dance on the clouds,’ Octavius answered.

Mother Octopus let out a squeal.

‘What nonsense you spout!’

‘A ghastly affliction!’ cried Father. ‘If we are to preserve our standing in society, there is only one course of action. Octavius, you are to be banished from the cleft in the rocks — never to return!’

The following morning, Mother Octopus packed a little fresh seaweed for the boy, and he departed, long before the others were awake.

Having never left the cleft in the rocks before, Octavius was unsure where to go. But unlike his siblings, he wasn’t fearful of adventure. Indeed, the thought of finding a path for himself filled him with joy.

For days and nights, Octavius travelled.

Sometimes, the water was cool.

And at other times, it was warm.

Sometimes, the seabed was strewn with rocks.

And at other times, it was bare.

Sometimes, every imaginable creature reeled all around.

And at other times, the little octopus was more alone than he had ever been.

Once in a while, another creature would give Octavius something to eat, or offer advice.

An elderly squid told him to follow his dreams.

A sharp-eyed razorfish told him to watch out for sharks.

And an anemone told him to keep on going until he could smell the horizon.

There were days on which the little octopus felt homesick. But, as he pondered it, there was no point in allowing such feelings to consume him, because his home had never been a place of sublime delight.

Rather than dwell on misery, he did what he had done since the day of his birth…

He lost himself in the limitless bounds of his own imagination.

He imagined castles fashioned from seashells in which wide-eyed demons lived.

He imagined shipwrecks piled high with treasure.

And he imagined a mermaid’s unrequited love.

But most of all, he imagined a place where he longed to be — a place where he would be welcome.

Many more days and nights of travel came and went.

Then, early one morning, Octavius was nearing a ridge on the sea floor when he made out a sleek, fast-moving predator with rows and rows of gleaming white teeth.

To his horror, the creature was heading in his direction.

Thinking fast, the little octopus curled up into a ball and pretended he was a rock.

At double speed, a shark swam past. Such was its power that a current swished the little octopus helter-skelter to the side.

Before he knew it, Octavius was bouncing along the seafloor.

First, he bounced into a stingray’s lair, and was lucky to escape with his life.

After that, he bounced through a grove of sharp coral.

And then he bounced into a kelp forest.

Much flailing followed.

As he flailed, Octavius cursed himself for ever giving voice to his imaginings. Had he kept his thoughts to himself, he might have been tucked up in bed with his siblings.

Blustering into a clearing in the undergrowth, the little octopus spied a kind of doorway carved from stone. Bewildered as to why it was there, he was about to swim back through the kelp forest when something in his gut goaded him forwards.

The next thing he