Papa Shanghai´s Takeout

What if I could turn myself around, truly? Inside out, just like the promiscuous of all the sushi rolls.

Everything is frozen. It’s winter and I feel like a fish filet that has been cut into chunks just to be mashed together, forming a perfect shape. My composition hidden, covered in bread crumbs. This way I am appealing to the masses, am I appealing to you?

I am running away from the hot fat, the last stage of being devoured by all those hungry mouths that feed on individual souls. A filet on the run! I slip and slide through the city. I hide myself among the other frozen filets. We are all golden, covered in ice.

The only way I can express myself, get out of my crust, express myself – is in the dark. Away from the preying eyes of the mouths. I have been chopped but all my parts are still there, somewhere. So I peel away my golden bready crumps, I talk to myself. I try to find myself.

In the dark I recomposition myself. When the sun comes up, I put back whatever I peeled off. Don’t I look pretty for you? A true delight, just like the others!

In the dark, I find the chopped off parts. I find their true place. In silence, I talk with myself. In the corners, crumbles fall and I peel away the disguise.

A breaded fish fillet. Naked, frozen, awake.

Does the porcupine feel the touch of a loving woman?

Switching from rice to bread, I continue to enter my secondary vessel. On this part of the globe, I walk more slowly. Yet, with less intent. Perhaps because the paths have been walked incessantly by yours truly.

Should I pave the path or continue to have muddy boots?

I have multiplied several times now and with each separation I have become – paradoxically – richer. Round edges become sharp. They reflect sunlight, blinding some, enlightening others. It’s not even up to me anymore which version is the more refined. Perhaps it just depends on the context – yours and mine.

Just like the porcupine, it depends on how you approach each of these versions. The beautiful thing about spikes is that they run one direction. Not dangerous when touched from the side, not even the base. There’s a front that still sniffles around, looking for the right way.

Just watch the back.

Who would have thought that being mad can be so deliciously comforting?

I grew up in an ant colony, one of many actually in these woods. I can’t even count them anymore. We haven’t been disturbed by these mushroom-seeking bipeds called human. So the piles grow, another colony opens up. I have lost count of the queens at this point. In the end, just a few see them anyway.

I run around everyday, someone tells me what to do. And that ant gets told what to do by someone else. Well, the next one, you know where I am getting at.

I guess free will only existed as a concept in myself since the incident last week. I was on the way somewhere, lost in the way rather than thinking about the command itself. My antlers were doing more thinking than my brain, to be honest. You don’t need much of anything if you have learnt to keep your head down and just follow the path that is most trampled.

Focussing a bit too much on my antlers, I got lost. I did only realise it after I was in high grass and could not see where I came from or where I was going. What would you do in my position? Having been told what to do, never really thinking how and why. I didn’t even panic. I didn’t know there was such a thing as panic. So I did what I always do, I waited for a command.

I guess hours went by. Ants don’t wear watches. But the sun slowly disappeared. So I naturally got hungry. Luckily, the wall I was leaning on seemed to bit a bit squishy. It reminded me of the usual loot we bring back to the queen. So I took a bite.

A while later, I saw it. Everything. Light and darkness mixing. I saw the colony, the structure. I saw it from above and below. I was ant, loot, human. I was everything that ever lived and will live. My antlers became friends of mine. Friends became antlers showing me the way.

I became what I always was but never thought about. I was born,untouched. Full of experience, heading into a new form.

I ate raw. Why don’t you?

Unless you prefer to be cooked?

The drop that has burst open the cask has arrived. I am exploding. My previous form has lost its meaning. I will be back – in some way?

Yearning, I open my mouth. I eat. Much more than I am supposed to.

For whatever reason, things did not start to make any sense. I am in awe of beauty. Eyes, penetrating my soul, leaving it naked for everyone to observe. Yet, no one watches. Victim of a power-play, I remain humbled.

A true winner knows when to stop. It was a fair fight – at least I say to myself to find any kind of consolation for my utter inability to even put up a granule of resistance. Like a fist trying to form itself, I am only able to flicker with one thumb.

Being struck down, silently, elegantly, by few words and deep understanding, I understand that I know nothing – yet?

Perhaps we can circle around, maybe I can understand. With my head bowed, I will follow. I am a brute, one with many words and little patience.

I didn’t have a chance. Rightfully so.