There was once a beautiful building by the bay, one that gleamed a bright brown in the sunset hours. It did no harm. Generations of New Yorkers lived inside from the 1920s on. Over the years the building housed boys and girls, talented artists, women of science, men of letters, grandmas of warm cookies, uncles of ill repute, and cats (but not dogs because they were not allowed).

            Through no fault of its own, the building was sinking. Perhaps it was due to shifting soil under the foundation or a geological event. It didn’t help that it sat on Manhattan, an island subsiding since the last ice age. Scientists said that the Great Sinking – as the building preferred to think of it (if it could be said that the building had any thoughts) – had been occurring at 1.6 millimeters per year. And for over one hundred years the sea levels had been rising. It had been a century of decline, literally.

            The beautiful building was sinking into the bay, and nothing would be done to stop it. Engineers had their hands full with higher priorities, like pumping water out of the basement of the nearby hospital. Firefighters were farther inland, shoring up the new elementary school. And the police were directing traffic away from the flood zone.

            To be forgotten about could hurt anyone, and if it can be said that buildings have feelings like people and dogs, then the building felt hurt. But little did it know it would soon fall victim to Cupid’s arrow.

            The octopus is known to be the most intelligent invertebrate of the sea. There are more types than humanity could ever dream of; sneaky mollusks that they are, they have maps to the deepest, darkest ocean spots ingrained in their minds. In short, what man knows of the octopuses is but the tip of the octopi iceberg.

            Man has discovered the giant Pacific octopus, which can grow up to 30 feet wide and weigh over 600 pounds. Impressive, but a mere flea compared to what occupies a residence in the murkiest shadows: The Giant Octopus. If one true monster exists at the depths of man’s consciousness it is this leviathan, not because it is specifically lethal to man but because man is in no way a threat to it.

            If it is possible for a building to have feelings, can it cry out in sorrow? If so, we know that sound travels faster in water than air. Did the Giant Octopus hear such a cry? Is that why it turned its slit-eyed gaze in the building’s direction? And if all this can happen, why can’t Cupid’s arrow ricochet off the building’s facade and shoot into one of the octopus’ three hearts?

            Yes, there was love brewing in tres corazones. Warm feelings were crackling in the hearths of each apartment as well. As the building sank, the Giant Octopus rose to meet it.

           As Cupid’s arrow flew, there were residents of the building who were falling out of love. As they saw their floors tilt and their walls buck, they thought, I’m coming out downside wrong on this deal. It’s time to split. Falling out of love with your home is better than falling out a window of your sinking apartment complex. So, split they did.

            And that sinking feeling was all around town. As news spread of the structure’s demise, every New Yorker wondered if they might be next. Who would go home to find their dwelling sagging like a car with a flat tire? Which high rise had inches shaved off its vertical?

           Nobody really cared about the buildings themselves, just the stuff inside.

            The building that was sinking, the one that would soon fall head over heels, the one suddenly empty inside, was not an Art Deco masterpiece like its 1920s brethren. It was eight stories of plain, clean brickwork, and it let everyone walk all over it.

           The Giant Octopus was a loner by design. He wasn’t made to socialize. He didn’t know if there was another of his species around for a thousand miles, let alone a suitable mate. He dwelled in the gloomy abyss for so long it seemed like darkness was all that existed.

            The fish that swam overhead never saw him, and the other octopi were snobs. No man would dare to sink so low, their vessels not able to manage the pressure.

           The Giant Octopus spent most of his life in blackness because he thought he deserved no better. But when he looked up and saw his lovely edifice slipping down towards him, he knew he wanted more.

            When the first tentacle wrapped around the base of the structure, people saw it and remarked, “What?” Their interrogative had a tone of incredulity. In other words, they couldn’t believe what they saw.

           There are videos on social media labeled “sea monster dragging building down NYC,” “giant squid attack in Manhattan,” and “Loch Ness on East Coast.”

           People talked about a monster destroying their beloved building, the one they neglected to paint for decades. The one with cracks in the foundation and holes in the roof.

            Would you believe that there were older, taller buildings situated farther inland that had a view of the entire romance that looked down on the smaller structure and what it wanted? They judged it harshly, remarking that it was throwing its life away with this sea trash.

            Isn’t that the way everyone sees love from a distance when they don’t know the story? Someone is the victim of it, someone is the monster, someone is always dragging the other one down to their level.

            What happens when they are hurt? An octopus arm: regenerated. A building floor: renovated.

            For years they looked across the same water at the same moon in the same night sky, separately, just from different angles, high and low.

            They had so much in common and they never knew it.

            Did the Giant Octopus reach out from deep, chilly waters into fresh New York City air, wrap its arms around the building and drag it down to its level, down in the briny deep? Or did the building, seeing the undulating cephalopod rising upwards in the moonglow, rush its own demise to meet it?

            Whichever the case, the lover’s clinch happened slowly. The Giant Octopus was tentative, holding its breath (both in nervousness and because it couldn’t breathe out of water). The building did everything slowly, and falling into its lover’s eight arms was no exception.

            They had plenty of time to back out if it wasn’t a sure thing.

            Much later, the people who didn’t get it and the sea creatures that didn’t get it and the buildings that didn’t get it will see (either by a fish’s lateral vision or a human’s deep-sea photography) the eight-limbed titan and the no longer pristine eight-story structure canoodling at the bottom of the ocean, eight tentacles weaving their way through eight windows on eight levels, a meshed embrace with suction cup kisses. Those fish and those people and those buildings will say they saw the whole thing: when the lovers met, their initial connection, and the two of them splashing into the deep blue. And those fish and those people and those buildings will say they knew it would work out all along.