The Crayfish is Dead,Long LIve the Crayfish.

The day had dawned like any other.No intimation of what fateful events were to be rolled out in our paths, like a musty carpet spraying out the carcasses of tiny beings, along with other particles best left unidentified ,all encased in a lovely,fluffy dust as mat hits the floor.  I will be honest with you, though I hate to speak any ill of the dead....particularly ones who have giant,burly afterlife pincers........I didn`t whoop with joy when Batboy turned up with more than Pokari Sweat in a cut off pet bottle seven weeks ago.  In fact,I fairly bristled. Anything furry,with little sparkly eyes that makes timely squeaking noises wins my complete adoration anytime.  And the smaller and more compact the bum bum secretions, the better.  I don`t get the Japanese preoccupation with insects, notably ones that look like the inspiration for the first `Alien` movie.  My first month in Japan and  I will never forget visiting a Japanese friend`s house.  Taking demure sips from our green tea, her three young kids suddenly started jumping around and pointing down towards the pine floor.  To my horror,some giant monstrosity was audaciously ambling along and...how dare it........ in broad daylight.  Determined to save the kids from a lifetime of nightly terror and present myself as a caring foreigner, willing to face all manner of adversity for the salvation of others,I stomped on that black beastie for a good two minutes. It was only as I stood gasping from the exertion of slaying such a considerable foe that I noticed the kids, and their mother, were screaming even louder. It turned out that the said beastie was in fact a prized `O Kuwagata`. A giant kind of beetle,revered here and that had cost a whopping 50,000 yen.(250 pounds)  How was I to know the children's` cries initially had been from excitement?  It had just looked like a rather cheeky,tubby cockroach. I think they must have moved out of the neighbourhood soon after that as I never bumped into them again and their mobile number changed.

Zoom forward nearly ten years, add on a few extra limbs and I am faced with a `cockroach` that can scuba dive.  Batboy named him `Charlie` because I thought it would help me to endear to this little creature.  I reminded myself that he was somebody`s son...or daughter...and while `Charlie the Crayfish was under my roof, he was to be treated like one of the family.  In fact the cat paid an enormous amount of attention to Charlie and I had to prise him away quite a few times.  At first,cleaning out his tank everyday was rather tedious but slowly he grew on me.  Every morning,he`d waltz out of his little yogurt container home at the sound of our voices and wait for his breakfast of fresh,dried fish.  He was gradually upgraded to a larger tank complete with a little `castle` home and florescent coral.  I`d put him on the windowsill and talk to him about my daily life.  He was such a selfless listener, never interrupted me, only waving one of his antennas in agreement.  We were on the same wavelength about so many things.  The summer holidays ended and school beckoned for him to return. It was with a heavy heart that morning, as I walked Charlie to his first day back at school. I genuinely felt his heart was heavy too.  He died within his first hour back there.  Batboy went to check on him with his classmates and there he was,  floating, eyes dull, staring blankly upwards, one pincher held upwards, grasping at who knows what.

"Where`s the body?" asked the only buddist in the house,my husband.  "At school," sobbed Batboy into his miso soup,"We buried him in the school garden." Tutting sounds from hubby`s corner."We could have tried him out in our new deep frier."