endless shrimp

Cat's dark night of the shrimp.

Hello. This Cat.

This week, Cat share story about quest for shrimps. Cat’s readers may have some knowings of Cat’s love for 🍤. Sometimes, like love, enlightenment can be painful. Cat invite you to find comfy spot for make cozy times while Cat unrolls big juicy tale of love, idealism, and shrimp.

One day, Cat wake up from nap and feel deep, deep, cravings. Gnawing tug of hungers make rumbles in stomach, and Cat feel yearnings for dancing sensations on tongue.

Yearnings for warm, savory, crunchy, shrimpy goodness.

Cat shake off sleep and run to food bowl as fast as Cat can. Heart is pounding, fanny is fluttering. Visions of blissful joy fill Cat’s entire being until…

Cat arrive at food bowl and peer inside. Food bowl thick with cold pâté. Pink, lumpy, mush. Odor is mild, flavor is dull. Pâté not even swim in succulent juices!!! Outrage.

Feel like worst day ever.

Cat’s human not at home for ask give crunchies. Cat no can open pantry door for sneaky gobbles. Even runaway crunchies hide from Cat.

Despairs.

Cat paces lineoleum floors, whipping tail back and forth. Tugging inside stomach grows more insisting. Tongue feel scratchy and dry. Feeling of doom permeates airs. Cat feels desperations.

How can Cat receive savories…NEOW.

Then Cat have idea. Big idea. Cat sits down in front of big metal box.

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Tap-tap, roll-roll. Very quick-like, Cat stumble onto Internt tubers, big place with very many moving pictures. Tap-tap, roll-roll. Delectables. Cat find moving pictures of endless shrimp, cascading fried savories. Copious crunchy goodnesses fill metal box.

The batters so golden, the juices so shiny, the shrimpers so plump…Cat’s mouth waters. Cat even drool on thin metal box, make messies. Big messies.

Tap-tap, roll-roll. Infinite endless shrimpies pay no mind to messies.
Tap-tap, roll-roll. Infinite endless shrimpies fill up metal box.

Cat cannot get enough. In fact, Cat cannot tear eyes away from moving pictures on metal box. Tap-tap, roll-roll. Clock tick-tocks as warm sunlight disappears and LED glow shines brighter. Cat wander further inside world of metal box, get lost inside infinite scroll-roll.

It strange…strange because moving pictures of shrimpers not fill Cat’s stomach. Moving pictures fill Cat’s thinkings. Strange how this fullness feels hollow.

Cat continue huntings, continue searchings. Tap-tap, roll-roll. Birds grow silent and sky turns dark as Cat chases hungers into the night.

After this experience, Cat have findings. Big findings.

Cat begin to see fried savories and shrimp crunchies every time Cat open window inside metal box.

➡️ When Cat tap on box for play game.
➡️ When Cat send newsletters.
➡️ When Cat read messages in emails.

Cat knows how feel when stalking prey. Now Cat feel like Cat is prey. Cat feel stalked…stalked by moving pictures of endless shrimpers. How???

Cat become very curious, as Cat does.

Fried savories follow Cat’s every move. No problem, right? After all, Cat love savories, Cat love shrimpers. Now, shrimpers always beside Cat in metal box. Now, Cat no have need tap-tap, roll-roll for endless shrimpers. Endless shrimps follow Cat, like shadow.

Not bad, Cat think, not bad at all.

But more Cat sit with thinkings, more Cat feel…strangeness. Cat know this not magics. This something else. Something unreal.

So Cat hunt for answers…as Cat does.

See, Cat is good hunter because Cat use senses to guide. Use senses to explore, use senses to hunt. Senses like smell, taste, hear, see, touch. For be good hunter, be good chaser, must put thinkings aside, must tune into senses.

Cat observe how images on metal box feed Cat’s thinkings, not feed Cat’s senses.

Cat dig deeper, scratch at mystery same way scratch at cardboard boxes.

Endless shrimpers—easy. No chase, no hunt, no surprise. Shrimpers always waiting for Cat inside metal box. But if shrimpers always waiting for Cat inside metal box, what is Cat chasing? Why Cat get lost in metal box?

Cat sit with thinkings.

More time Cat give to metal box, more time Cat forget world outside of metal box. More time forget how hunt and chase.

Forget how good it feel to taste true shrimp. Forget smell of favorite pillow on couch, forget sound of bird wings, forget feeling of warm sunlight on tummy while stretched out on rug.

In metal box, easy forget senses. Easy forget pleasures.

Moving pictures on Internt taste like snack. Like snack on airplane: keep occupied, keep complacent, keep calm. Keep Cat from feeling big, real, hungers for life. Keep Cat from playing with curiousities and imaginations.

Give Cat infinite chase, but keep Cat chasing the hunt itself.

Days go by. Cat take rest, away from metal box and endless shrimpers. Cat sit in front of book and read about things. Things so unreal, become more than real, become hyperreal. Things like endless shrimpers.

Cat sit with senses.

Endless shrimpers on metal box run cold. Not warm and juicy, not deeply fried, not salty goodness. Endless shrimpers on metal box are like endless shrimpers, but they are not endless shrimpers themselves.

Endless shrimpers no have origin in reality, only reflect reality. Refer to reality, but not bound to reality itself. Endless shrimpers are denatured shrimpers.

Cat contemplates, and small glimmers of knowing grow inside Cat’s thinkings.

Cat understands there never will be endless, infinite, supply of shrimp. Cat understands that endless shrimpers in metal box will never be touched by Cat’s senses. Will never feel embrace of Cat’s sharpened teeths, will never touch rough surface of Cat’s tongue.

When contemplate the finitude of shrimps, when contemplate the hyperreality of endless shrimps, Cat have feelings. Big feelings.

Cat feel sadness, feel disappointment. Even feel little bit angers.

Why? Because Cat love fantasy of endless shrimp. Cat love idea of endless shrimp. Cat love so much, Cat get lost chasing hungers, chasing moving pictures, chasing tap-tap, roll-roll.

Cat have some understanding of workings of energy. Cat understand that all energies are in exchange. What Cat give metal box in exchange for very many fleeting endless shrimpers?

Cat sit in sadness, makes bun, and folds paws quietly until sadness leaves body.

Time pass. Moon shines brightly through window.

Cat settles deeply into warm duvet. Turns round and round to make best fit, to make ultimate cozers. Cat tries to sleep, but toss and turning instead. Feel tired in body, but in thinkings, wide awake.

Time pass. Sun rises behind trees like big orange eyeball.

Warm light filters through window, bringing Cat back to waking world. Birdsong floats through the airs and Cat’s thoughts turn to the goodness of chasing, the goodness of hunting. Chasing crinkle balls, lizards, and dustbunnies. Hunting for real fried shrimpers, real crunchers.

Cat considers what lies beneath the goodness of the fried batters and the golden crispers. Cat considers the deliciousness of the chase: the satisfaction in striving, the thrill of the wild, the mystery of the shimmering unknown. The reward if finally catch, the reward if finally receive.

There is goodness, too, in the uncertainty of it all.

Cat’s stack:

Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances
Jean Baudrillard, The System of Objects
Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
Kennedy Warne, Let Them Eat Shrimp

Cat is pleased readers accompany Cat through depths of cravings, on big hunt for shrimps and small sidequest for answers.

Thank you for playing, Cat 🐾

 ᓚ₍ ^. .^₎ 🎣