I seem to be on a paranormal jag these days, and so, since I am, I thought that I would share a post I stumbled across on Stephen Wagner's about.com paranormal phenomena website the other day. A reader called Clavi wrote in following the tragic and untimely demise of her sea monkeys:
"Last September (2012), living in London, my housemate bought me sea monkeys for my 21st birthday," reports Clavi. "I hadn't had them since a child, so loved it! A few weeks later, our house held a party, and a friend was so drunk he poured vodka into the sea monkey's container. Safe to say, I became very angry and upset and threw him out of the house. I guess it was the nostalgia from my childhood that made them mean so much to me.
"About a week later, after spending the evening watching TV with my housemate, I went up to bed around 1 a.m. I turned my bedside light off and was attempting to go to sleep when I saw about ten tiny lights above my head -- my sea monkeys! They looked like tiny little luminescent flies, but after about two seconds, they were gone. I didn't have them long as pets, but they meant a lot to me, and I'm glad they could pass over to the other side in peace."
Okay, well, it's hard to know what to think, isn't it? I mean, on one hand, if all living creatures (great and small) possess spirits (if not necessarily souls), then it stands to reason that sea monkeys must possess them as well, doesn't it? Then, again, I've had dogs and cats that I've loved dearly, who, after they died, never so much as paid me an obligatory supernatural wet kiss, so how come Clavi rates a luminescent fond farewell from a bunch of speck-sized brine shrimp that she herself admits she had only "known" for a short time before they went belly-up?
Maybe it all comes down to the energy of the person involved. Apparently, Clavi has the right kind of energy for attracting sea monkey spirits, whereas I, a person who has spent years and years reading and writing about the paranormal, as well as attending spiritualist gatherings and more than my share of seances, is totally wanting when it comes to attracting the spirits of furry, warm-blooded mammals that I more or less considered members of my family. Do I sound bitter? Well, I am. But there's a little more to it than just feeling jealous of Clavi's nocturnal visitation from the spirits of brine shrimp. You see, I was once the owner of some sea monkeys as well. It was in the late 60's, when I was around ten, and I ordered them from the back of an Archie comic book. When, after weeks and weeks of waiting with bated breath (pun intended), the things finally arrived in our mailbox, I was excited beyond words. I wasn't stupid enough to believe that real sea monkeys actually wore miniature crowns like the cartoon ones in the ad, but I was absolutely convinced that I would be afforded "hours of fun" watching them cavort around in their bowl and do whatever the hell else sea monkeys do to show off their zany nature. But they never got the chance to show me so much as a cartwheel. Why? Well...because I accidentally killed them.
That's right. I'm confessing it right here in this post. At the age of ten, caught up in the kind of feverish excitement that only comes from being the new owner of a package of brine shrimp eggs (yes..they mailed them out in egg-form...big mistake), I invited all of my friends over to see my new pets, which, naturally, led to all kinds of touching and holding of the water-filled container in which I had placed the eggs...
which, in turn (and inevitably) led to one of my friends pretending to spit into the container, at which point, I grabbed it away from him and dropped it on the garage floor. And that was it for the unborn sea monkeys. And for me...as far as sea monkeys were concerned, anyway.
So, now, what have we learned from this post? Well, I can't answer for you, but as for myself, I like to think that I'm at last ready to let go of my sea monkey guilt and move on...just like Clavi's luminescent sea monkey spirits. And as for any residual bitterness just because none of my pets have ever come back to see me...well, I think I can get over that now, too. After all, maybe the reason I haven't ever heard from them is that they're just having too good a time on the other side to bother with this one. At least, I hope that's true.
Skol!
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