AN OCTOPUS HAS THREE HEARTS, & OTHER WONDERS

KRISTINA PERCY

The amount of wonder in the world is unknown, but we do know this: it is, so far, not endangered. Wonder lives anywhere. Find it in a volcano, blocked storm drain, crease of a favourite page. It feeds best in the shifting dark on the far edge of sleep, but can survive on the thinnest peels of thought or pride. In captivity, where even those are scarce, wonder has been known to wander from its too-small tank and run its suckers over any ordinary thing: a pencil, a succulent.

As it grows, wonder learns that a door is not a wall. Did you know that wonder can pick a lock? That it can regrow each part of itself severed by its many critics?

Wonder lives just long enough to tend to its One Great Idea. It dies soon after the idea is born.

KRISTINA PERCY (she/ her) lives on Vancouver Island, Canada, in the traditional territories of the Ligwiłda’xw people. Neither of her degrees have anything to do with creative writing. Her work has been published extensively in her Gmail drafts folder, and you can also find it on Instagram @__kpwrites