Experiment 111 Archangel Daniel

The Dreamweaver - age 8

The streets are crowded. A dark skinned man sits at a corner of a one way street silently hawking his wares, watching the passers by. The vehicles appear to have their own laws of traffic, driving in the opposite direction of the arrows on the sign posts. The group of them carefully watches out for vehicles to their left as they waited for an empty moment to cross the lane safely. Now? Her friend on her right asks. Now, she agrees. They cross the tarmac together with another family of four to the side of the seated salesman. Her friend negotiates a ride to bring them and the family to another destination, Panlingua. Two hundred and sixty, the man says. The deal is done and they wait for their transport.

She is trying to figure out the logic of the traffic as they wait. The vehicles have a one way exit sign, yet other vehicles from the main road are filtering into the narrow lane. They must have a code somewhere, she thinks. How else to keep the peace and not have any accidents. How else do they see two ends of the road and potential blind spots, she marvels.

The family is hungry and has sat down to order a meal. They invite the girls to join them. Another male friend appears to share their meal and journey. We have time, he says. He takes a seat on her left. The food is served by a matron wearing a multi purpose apron. The family orders some live sashimi and seafood salad. Tiny shrimps, alive and no more than a centimetre, hop around the big bowl of vegetable. One of them jumps out of the bowl and lands close to her. It has long antenna of about four to five inches and its shelled body is translucent. She can see it struggling to breathe. It seems drunk on alcohol.

She feels pity for the poor creature and lifts it up by its feelers. Perhaps it can feel her intentions to save it for the little shrimp becomes quiet upon her touch. She sees a glass of cold water and releases the tiny being into it. It starts to swim. Hope spurs her on and she notices more stray tiny shrimps scattering on the table. She puts perhaps ten of them into the glass of water. One or two of them may have died from the trauma of the experience. She tries to save a coloured fish with a body length of about three inches. The fish seems more dead than alive.

She sees a tank of water and thinks perhaps it may give them more space instead of the glass. She releases her sashimi victims into the bigger receptacle of water. She does not see the foot long snakehead fish until it appears, drawn to the newcomers. Oh no, she thinks, it is the end of line for these tiny shrimps. She feels sorry that they are so small and will be eaten by the imposing snakehead fish that is so much bigger and more aggressive than they are.

The snakehead fish circled the new additions to its space, perhaps trying to figure out if they are friends or food, or perhaps to round up its meal. The tiny crustaceans swim close together into the body of the smaller half dead fish. She shakes her head at the folly of the coordinated movement of the little shrimps; they will simply be gulped down in one mouthful and die together. They do not scatter like other more devolved sea animals on the platter; it can possibly increase their chances of survival for a while longer if they do scramble about independently. Perhaps that is why they are eaten and the snakehead is a smarter predator, she thinks sadly. The snakehead tasted one of the dead shrimp bodies - food.

The snakehead hovers in anticipation of its meal and just as its mouth opens with the intent to lunge, something unexpected happens. The tiny crustaceans shoot out from the smaller fish body and like arrows quickly speared the snakehead in its mid motion. She watches in awe at the unexpected turn of events. The snakehead fish trashes about in confused pain trying to dislodge the arrowed attacks. The shrimps pierce cleanly through the snakehead's flesh and doubled up for a second and third and fourth attack on the big fish. The shrimps are faster than her eyes can track and soon it is too clouded with the big fish's blood to tell.

Her mind is blown by the ferocity of these tiny creatures that seem so helpless just moments ago. Come, says the matron to the girl. Take a look at this. She points to a white pail on the floor which contains a single sliver fish. It is a tad bigger than the smaller fish she released into the bowl. The matron then poured three bigger darker coloured fish into the pail, the silver fish shrinks back as if to make space for the other fish and suddenly lurches forward. In three consecutive bites, the silver fish kills the three bigger fish. The clear water of the pail is now muddied with fresh magenta blood. The silver fish returns to its original serene position in the last bit of clear water space as blood and bodies swirl.