Something Fishy

Talking to ourselves is a common trait in the Perera family, in fact sometimes we get so carried away we have entire arguments in monologue. Its one of those traits of creative super bright people, like all my genius uncles who were heart surgeons, and brilliant at chess, not to mention dedicated philanderers and fans of the outdoor life and funny hats. And marrying women with names like Gertrude and Harriet. Not to even remotely hint that any of that genius would have rubbed off on my siblings or me. Anyway to cut a long monologue short hearing voices in our head is generally standard operating procedure at our place, its when you actually start hearing them curse in ancient Sanskrit that you know you messed up somewhere. But wait, Im coming to that…

Saturday the 14th was a bad day too. There was the fish episode which I will write about later and then, the Office politics, same as you get in any workplace around the world, but these were drunken media people so it could get really ugly and articulate. Some of them fought like women, as they say.. even the women!
However- for sheer catty asexual workplace harassment there was always the Big Guys top lapdog Shito as we called him in private. The Big Guy was good at many things from analysing the stock market, to philosophical discourse to ballroom dancing but anything computer tech was unfortunately able to throw him. Enter a good old Shitzter. Shito was a short tubby fellow with stubby fingers. Good looking, in a sort of unhealthy looking way. Good at public speaking and making powerful presentations. Lots of IQ but zero EQ. Ton loads of bullshit. Shito was our Chief IT Officer (hence the abbreviation of the tag) which meant he had access to all our email accounts, and mind you he sure made use of the access, and seemed to know everything to the constant surprise and wonder of the Big Guy. Here was practically an oracle. Big Guy hung on his words with awe, and agreed to anything he said. Pretty soon staff became wise to his hacking and did their proper correspondence through personal gmails while simply sending to and fro well zipped password protected folders with cryptic names like ShitoNUdepics.zip …we actually found it took any tedium out of the workplace to engage Shito in his own games. This morning he had copied an email to all staff bringing up the subject of an online application my unit had made to the International Federation of War Correspondents, which apparently only he had the authority to initiate. Who the hell knew that? And what could I do about it now? Apologise cravenly and beg for pardon from the senior Team?
GAHH DON’T TAKE SHIT FROM HIM, YOU STUPID BITCH STAND UP -QUIT BEING SUCH A PUSSY
Ok , there it was again, that voice in my head. And I was actually calling myself rude names.
I sat wondering exactly how I could do that
ASK HIM IF CEREMONIAL SEPPUKKU IN THE BOARDROOM WOULD SUFFICE
Suggested the sarcastic voice and my hand hovered over the COMPOSE MESSAGE button while I wondered what the hell “seppuku” was anyway. How come I could talk to myself words I did not know the meaning off? Was that what you called an overactive subconscious, I wondered idly as I googled the word and landed at Wikipedia which helpfully stated that “Seppuku (切腹?, "stomach-cutting") is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment.”
Nasty

What would be real nasty would be the email flaming that would start up if I did send such a message out, with reference to such abstracts as staff commitment, lack of understanding of the true complexity of the situation, lack of professionalism evidenced by flippant attitude in external communications of a nature crucial to the sustainability of the organisation and that other gem the clear availability of too much free time to certain staff members who engaged in compulsive email flame wars ( us not him, since email was apparently his job) ad nauseum.
..and yet I really wanted to hear what he had to say about it, my fingers itched!
JUST DO IT
Not likely, I never send this sort of email without queuing it and looking at it sometime later and I even have UNDO settings which can recall a sent email …that’s how prudent I usually am.
I hit the button, and watched idly as the undo period countdown began, there were twenty seconds in which to recall this email – here I was, I had sinned in the corporate eyes of all the Senior Team and I was being cocky and uncaring- this was clearly the beginning of the end, they would surely fire me for crossing swords with Shito the Great…OUR MESSAGE HAS BEEN SENT.

I sat forward and stared at my screen closer for confirmation –
Your message has been sent – said the comfortable gmail font. That was better.
Then I got back to work, only remembering the weird fish episode when I accidentally got a whiff of my own breath on the phone receiver. To make a short story complicated- heres what happened.

Ive recently decided to eat only seafood.
This comes from many months of exposure to the FaceBook profile of a very interesting friend of mine, a miss Raabia Hawa from Nairobi, a beloved media personality, ardent animal rights activist, passionate rebel with an environmental cause, tree hugger and general sweetheart, who consistently starts the FB day with some harrowing report of cats being skinned alive in China, seals being bayonnetted in Finland, or dolphins being kept in very small circular pools of water which they feel uncomfortable in.
But mostly its all about factory farming. I had read to the giddy limit about the beating, burning, incarceration, castrating and generally inhumane treatment of cattle for beef and dairy, and decided that from now on I would satiate my carnivorous urges only upon fish and such cold scaly life forms;
My logic here was that they generally at least lived a nice free life till netted, and furthermore they were not chock full of tetracycline, banned steroids and other carcinogenic chemicals caused by stressed living…all very noble you will agree, but basically this is how I found myself buying and cooking a lot of shrimp for myself that Saturday morning.
Im an average cook, mind you. Whilst I cannot make full 4 course dinners to entertain ambassadors, or even drunk journalists, nor do I ever get caramel to bake properly, however to survive I can make myself (and the long suffering family)a fairly presentable lunch or dinner if I set my mind to it.
Shrimps apart from the fact that they carry their shit in their heads (and seriously I know a lot of humans who do that too) are not really much of a challenge to me. You rinse them to get the sand off, de-shit them, broil them gently in spices and vinegar and then use them in better and more elaborate cooking.
Something kind of went wrong in this plan , that Saturday morning, in that point somewhere after the rinsing and a little while into the broiling while I was waiting for them to start smelling really good, I actually put a hand into the clay pot took one out and popped it in my mouth. It was fresh and good, and the water was not boiling yet, just extra warmish. The spices were good too.
I took out another. And ate it
And another
Then …and im not sure exactly what happened after than, except that there was eating and both my hands were warm and wet. There was a little choking too. It was good, there was also a kind of consciousness black out. A sense of time lost.
Then there was my mother standing in front of me with the flask she usually brings up for bed tea.
“ hello dear, did you get some fish?” she said conversationally , but I could see she was staring at me.
She had not brought her daughter up to be caught at private moments, eating with her cheeks full of food and both her hands slimy up to the wrist. But she never liked to be accused of being interfering either. I turned quickly to back her and face the sink where I spat out about 100 grams of half munched raw shrimp and looked back in some confusion at the clay pot which was now really heating up at last.
Of the half kilo I had brought there were only a few survivors hiding at the bottom of the dish, and my throat was scraped raw with the shells.
I cant for the life of me imagine what had happened in the interim, between putting the fish to the water and spitting it out into the sink, except that I knew that at least ten minutes had passed, for the water to heat up and I had missed two urgent calls from office- and man, I was going in for a terrible sore throat …not to mention that my stomach was uncomfortably, gaseously, nauseatingly, full.