Pogo was a Dumbo Octopus—small, pale, and equipped with two flapping fins that looked like elephant ears. He lived in the deep, dark waters where the sunlight never reaches. Pogo’s only defense was a thick, dark ink-cloud he could spray whenever he was scared. But in the deep ocean, Pogo felt his ink was a curse.
“The water is already dark,” Pogo would sigh, floating near the luminous jellyfish. “When I get scared and spray my ink, I just make the world even uglier. I wish I had glowing scales or sharp teeth. I am just a smudge in the water.”
One day, Pogo drifted into the Garden of Glass, a forest of rare, fragile glass-sponges that grew like delicate frozen flowers on the sea floor. There, he met a Deep-Sea Anglerfish named Lux. Lux had a brilliant, glowing light hanging in front of her face, but she was looking very sad.
“Little Pogo,” Lux whispered, “The Great Volcano is waking up nearby. It is releasing a blinding, white light and heat that will shatter the Garden of Glass. The sponges are too sensitive to the sudden glare. They will crack and turn to dust if they aren’t shaded soon.”
Pogo looked at the distant glow of the underwater volcano. It was getting brighter and hotter. “But Lux, you have light! Can’t you guide them?”
“My light is too small,” Lux said. “And I cannot cover them all. We need a blanket of shadows, or this whole garden will be lost.”
Pogo realized what he had to do. He didn’t have teeth or armor, but he had the very thing the garden needed. He swam to the top of the Garden of Glass. Taking a deep breath, he began to spin in circles, releasing his ink in long, thick ribbons.
Because there was no current in the deep trench, Pogo’s ink didn’t wash away. Instead, it hung in the water like a vast, velvet curtain. He worked until he was exhausted, weaving a giant, dark “parasol” over the entire forest of glass-sponges.
When the volcano erupted, the blinding white light hit Pogo’s ink-cloud. The ink absorbed the heat and blocked the light, casting a cool, gentle shadow over the delicate glass flowers. The sponges remained safe, protected by the “smudge” that Pogo used to hate.
When the volcano settled, the sponges began to pulse with their own soft, internal rhythm, thanking Pogo for his protection.
“Your ink isn’t a mess, Pogo,” Lux said, drifting beside him. “It’s a shield. Sometimes, the world needs a bit of darkness to protect the things that are too bright to last.”
The Moral: What you consider to be your greatest flaw may be exactly what the world needs in a moment of crisis.
Review The Ink-Cloud and the Garden of Glass.