The last Shrimp..
There have been a surprising number of celebrity deaths today. This post is not about them, but about a tiny little shrimp.. (Halocaridina rubra for those of you who want details..)
Bear with me, and if you think about it perhaps it does relate after all.
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I have an ecosphere. It was given to me when over 10 years ago, when the only place that had them was luxury places like Hammacher Schlemmer. When they were still new, unique, and interesting.
It had two shrimp. It was intriguing to me, and lived on the top shelf in my room for years. Never moving, but every once in a while I’d look up there, stare, and see two shrimp swimming along, living their merry little lives.
Eventually they spawned, a rare event, and had a little babby shrimp. It was a happy family of three. As life goes, all things must eventually pass, and one of the parent shrimp died. One day I looked up there and could only see two. This made me sad, but again… that’s life.
When I moved out of my parent’s place a month ago, it was down to one, the babby. Still moving around, though apparently not as “lively” as it used to be, the babby was still toolin’ along. I left the ecosphere there because I was afraid to bring it to my new apartment, and I didn’t want to disrupt it too much. (Shaking Ecosphere = bad.)
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I’d previously made note of how final it seemed when I moved out and disassembled my bed. Apparently there were more “final notes” to come to this song.
I was at my parents place for a party today. At some point my mom brought over the ecosphere. Apparently in the last couple of days they’d noticed the last babby had stopped moving, and was just sitting there.
I tapped the sphere, trying to elicit a response — nothing. The babby was gone. My ecosphere had finally ended its cycle.
… I’m not hurting, I didn’t have a tight emotional attachment — you kinda can’t hug a shrimp in a closed bubble. The things had their own happy little life — and only elicited a response from me every once in a while when I still lived there. I do wonder what kind of a shock it was when I moved the sphere from my room to the living room.
It just seemed.. strange, like another sign that my life has entered another cycle. It was another constant that suddenly stopped being a constant.
For me, apparently small things have exponential influence on my perception of life. Go figure.
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To constants large or small — may we always appreciate them while they remain so, and not only when they’re gone.
