Shadow of a Shrimp

While at lunch in the eat-as-much-as-you-like, which is a Chinese, I contemplated as it was the second Chinese meal I'd had this week a few genes must be infiltrating my body. If anyone could be Chinese from eating Chinese food, I'm sure to be at least half way there. After scooping some mixed rice I couldn't help noticing a shrimp. For some reason this immediately linked into a memory from the film Forest Gump. Who spent a little while shrimp fishing in memory of his lost friend.

Back to the shrimp. I looked at it and thought how small it appeared and wondered about size. Whether there is a difference in shrimps, because I'm sure the one's Forest caught were some what larger. Maybe it is to do with where they come from, a particular sea, an area or just a different type of shrimp. The reality was, it didn't just look small, it looked pathetically small and I deliberated whether it was the result of a genetic experiment gone wrong. An extra small breed of shrimp specifically made for the food industry. But then when I thought about it, generally all foods with shrimps in the UK have paltry pathetic pink things. I've even seen prawns from the UK so small they looked like shrimps as well. I'm sure there is a difference between shrimps and prawns and in the giant freezer cabinets in Chinese grocery stores there are some pretty big frozen prawns. It just happens most people in the UK, me included see shrimps as little pink curly things. They were I thought, not really shrimps. More shadows of a shrimp.

I've put in a order for some books from Amazon. One related to the Fish Factory the other a wonderful book I read once. It was loaned to me by a man who has since died some years ago. It was called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The guy who lent the book worked a few desks away from mine, he was Bob Dylan's greatest fan. A really nice bloke. He'd swear like a trooper and oddly was a senior manager. I noticed if I swore while chatting to him, then he'd swear twice as much. If someone had told him twenty years before the effects of smoking I'm sure he would of given up. So in effect this man was a rebel, liking Bob Dylan was a clue. The book another. From what I recall it was about a man taking a motor cycle trip across America on a Harley. It is one of the great American novels. I probably have read more great American writers than British ones. Not to say British ones are few or not as great, but perhaps not as varied. With shame I say I've never read a Dickens. But at this time it don't matter. What matters are the rebels. The ones who stand out and do things, think things and say things which other people don't get. They may even be considered crazy. These people leave little waves even when gone. In a world full of humans they must be like a small shrimp in the sea. Their wave is a memory expanding and drifing outwards.

I'm looking forward to the books arriving. In the mean time I'll consider the shrimp now what can it tell me? I hope he speaks before he's eaten.