I was walking through The City a few days ago. I came into Chinatown. A couple of Chinese grocers were loading some fish from cardboard boxes into plastic containers. There must have been about 30 fish stacked up there. Fish are Fools! They have no idea they are going to be at any moment mere decoration in a Chinatown storefront, with their blue eyes staring at passing Chinese ladies with plastic shopping bags.
Anyway, two Chinese guys were slapping them from cardboard box to plastic box, cardboard box to plastic box, and so on. One of the guys had a cigarette hanging from his mouth. A fish, who had somehow managed to survive the journey from the ocean to the store, wriggled out of the man’s hand and slapped himself down to the pavement. There he was: gaFlop gaFlop gaFlop.
The merchant picked up the fish and threw him like a slimy washcloth into the plastic bin with the other fish.
The question struck me suddenly: “Where did that fish think he was going? Did he think he was going to catch a cable car back to the beach or something?”
I felt a weak spot in my heart. To die as a fish in Chinatown has to be miserable. That fish isn’t going to end up on a $40 plate at some elite restaurant with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge with little parsley twigs surrounding him. No. His head is going to end up in a pot boiling away with green, leafy Chinese vegetables in a crowded apartment somewhere.
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