I'm a fairly superstitious fellow. I don't walk under ladders. I don't open umbrellas indoors. And I certainly don't abide by the number Thirteen. I'm the kind of guy who's always tempted to buy those Turkish "evil eye" talismans--"Oh, it absorbs evil energy and stores it in a little glass receptacle emblazoned with a hauntingly all-seeing eye? AND it breaks when it gets too 'full' of evil energy?! Sign me up!" So I'm also somewhat big on omens.
I mean, I get that there's ample evidence out there (you know, science and all that) showing we are the mere byproduct of zillions of tiny particles randomly colliding into each other. That this shit called the Big Bang happened and now here we are. But . . . what if there's more? What if there is a Universe, and for some odd reason it tries to tell us things from time to time. Like, "Psst! Hey, buddy! Yeah, you! Hey! Look at me! I need to tell you something. It's urgent! You're about to walk by the love of your life! No, stop! Argh! Fine, I'll just throw this elderly coupled holding hands your way. That should do the trick." Clearly the Universe doesn't speak Human (or with much clarity, quite frankly). And until it figures out texting, it'll have to stick with omens to communicate (although, wouldn't little text messages from the Universe be great? I hope the Universe uses proper punctuation and spelling. Not like, "r u ready 4 some tru luv?")
All that to say, when I got home today I was presented with what I believe may be an omen. Upon doing my usual "fish tank check," I noticed that one of the ghost shrimp had kicked the bucket. I guess it's not all that unusual for something to die within the confines of an aquarium. To my dismay, none of the residents of my fish tank have mastered immortality, and so from time to time I must use the Great Green Fish Net (as the fish call it) to remove deceased denizens and pass them through the Great Flush and onto their journey into the Night Lands. It's a massive bummer to have to do that right after getting home from work, but it's certainly gotten easier.
Today, though, it was a bit different. Without getting too much into the gory details, let's just say that I am now fairly confident that Humans aren't the only living creatures out there that like the taste of shrimp. This savage scene of fish-on-shrimp violence gave me a chill right down my spine, especially given how I've been feeling lately. Nothing particularly unusual has happened to me, but recently it does seem that many of the things that were stable in my life have now gone slightly askew. Nothing is noticeably different, but everything feels off. Like when a picture frame is slightly off-center. But here, the frame is centered and it's instead the whole room that's off center (and, yes, I realize that makes me sound like a crazy person).
As I was transporting the deceased shrimp to the Porcelain Portal for the Great Flush, I couldn't help but think whether this strange shrimp sacrifice some type of omen from the Universe? A sign of things to come? I tried Googling "shrimp omens" but that didn't get me very far. Other permutations on the theme left me similarly vexed. Perhaps it is just another random occurrence. The carbon molecules in one of my shrimp deteriorating such that it could no longer sustain life and then becoming nourishment for another massing of carbon molecules. Dust to dust; ashes to ashes. I guess we'll see what happens. Hopefully it's nothing.
Hopefully the Universe doesn't speak Shrimp.
--KM
"By the telephone. Lift up the receiver. I'll make you a believer."
No comments:
Post a Comment