Black Mystery Snails
Hey all. You might not know this, but recently I have aquired a Black Mystery Snail. It all started a month or so ago when some student group or another for equality was giving out goldfish. I name mine 魔怪 literally translated it "Monster". Me and 魔怪 had a wonderful life together for about three weeks. I would feed him and he would refuse to entertain me in the slightest and continually hide behind, sometimes in, a shell I had provided him with. Unfortunately there was a tragic accident involving a net, a drain and one very suicidial fish. My fish was down the drain and presumably dead although I habor a secret fantasy of him surviving in the bowels of Eugene. But I digress, you might be wondering what this has to do with snails. Well my friend Rebecca had purchased a snail to help keep her tank clean. Melody and Vania my neighbors to the left thought I should get a snail considering they're hardly and even I could probably keep it alive.
So I go to PetSmart and purchase 秘密Mason Jerome, a Black Mystery Snail. Since the snail is black the part of the name is obvious as is the snail part, but make it a "Mystery". I intially thought the mystery part was just to make it sound cooler. Which one would you want? A black snail or a black mystery snail. One sounds shinier for sure. Mason as I like to him is a really stinker. Literally. If I don't clean his tank every few days it emits a foul odor. Also sometimes he just withdraws into his shell for hours which aparently completely healthy and normal. Mystery Snails are said to do this for days.
However nothing could have prepared my for the true mystery of the mystery snail. It's siphon. It even sounds weird, huh? Let's rewind. Today around 3:00 PM Pacific Standard Time I saw a long apendage come from whence my snail's shell. Andthen it was withdrawn and extended again. After dinner at 9ish I was informing Rebeccs of this strangeness and my snail happened to be doing this a gain when I went to show her. A siphon is a like a snorkel. It's longer than the snail and it is used to breath air from above the water. I don't know why it has this thoughsince it can breath underwater. It seems a little silly. Anyways I discover this via Google. I also leraned many other interesting things. Black Mystery Snails are modest and lay their eggs in secret at night. Also it is very hard to tell a male from a female there is a difference it just mostly not easy to identify. So my snail might actually be girl.
A lot about a snail huh? If you're wondering about me I'm doing fine, I wrote a story the other day and I think I will post it here along with a poem because well you have seen or heard from me in a while.
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She is young and wears time on her wrist. A bracelet with beads made of parts of calendar year of her life. At night she takes it off and sleeps dreaming of tomorrow.
Everyday she wakes up too late for decency, but too early for her liking. She rolls out of bed and puts herself together so that people can recognize her. She carefully rubs the sleep, but not the dream from her eyes.
She walks quickly by the green green grass as she hurries to class. The grass grows exuberantly if imperceptibly. Shoe bottoms hardly impede their aspirations for long. They live unnoticed.
She sits in the back of class. Listening, learning becoming more and more so she can be.
The professor tells and tells and tells. An example of a persom who has become. A success. She tells and tells, so the girl and other girls and boys can hear and hear. Talking because others must listen.
A tree waves frantically in the window trying to catch the attention of the listening hearers, but they are busy becoming and the professor has already become and therefore can not notice.
The girl rest her head on her wrist the wears time. Her hope filled eyes are busy looking and looking, but then she sees the tree. She blinks because it was yesterday those leaves were red and brown and orange.
The unseen grass remembers watching those leaves fall away.
When the professor stops telling, the students turn off their ears and walk excitedly out. The are done becoming for a while. The are going to go taste and feel the things they have made better.
The girl walks slowly. Her reprieve is short. She never likes what the next professor tells her. Absently she turns her bracelet on her wrist.
She sits down and the professor starts telling. The girl is listening, but is looking out the window. She is not seeing. She will listen if she must, but she refuses to see that future.
The sun is shining brightly outside the window. And if the girl didn’t know any better she’d think it was warm outside. But in her experience in all her going places the sun offered little warm in chill winter air.
The professor stopped telling, but the girl hardly listened so was caught unawares. She left following her classmates. He ears half off.
She cut over the grass to grab a snack more quickly. It was imperative to get there more quickly.
She sits by her window. Out the window there is sun and grass and trees that were once full of leaves, but she is busy. Studying, remembering what she was told to see. She squints to see ore clearly, but the sun and the remnants of yesterday’s dreams are blinding her..
The day dies and she grows weary. She is, but she needs to become..
She ends in the chill night air looking and looking for something to sate her hunger. And she she sees a girl pass her in the night. They say nothing. Not because there is noting to say, but there was no one with whom to converse.
Someday there might, but today they were busy.
Grass growing and growing in the shadow of the moon.
Birdsong at the Window
Today as I walked beneath your window
I saw a blue bird fly to your sill
And sing a song to you, a song as true as a bird’s can be
And smile not you did
Birds never visit my window
I’m hardly ever there besides
But should a bird of any color
Sing to me like that one did you
And perchance I was there to see
Surely my smile would sing just as brightly
Like the reflection of a bird come inside.
And I guess that's it. Maybe I update more often from now on.