I know what animates this bunch of tentacles:it’s just the salt in the soy filling the blanks in the dead nerves.I tell myself this, but as the GIF keeps loopingthrough the same few frames, the same pattern of flicks & wiggles,it’s difficult to not imagine necromancy, or worse,the dumb protest of a lump of brain-stem.At any moment I could stop this wonky, eight-limbed Charleston,not by eating it but by closing the tab. I tell myself this.Is it empathy that’s stopping me, a sense of dutyto bear witness & attend to the whims of the dead,no matter how random? Not quite. Maybe it’s envyor aspiration that keeps me watching. But do I envythe hand that pours the sauce & turns this stump of a squidinto its own erratic puppet, or aspire to be as pliableas the clump of tissue that receives its grace?If, as the physician says, the soul weighs twenty-one grams,it seems important that we find a wayto figure out how much of this is sodium& therefore how much of us is lost in a fit of crying,or passed back & forth throughout a night of sex.It will take perhaps a minute for the last shuddersto peter out & the tentacles to lie still again.I want to know is it best to wait before you startthe process of dismantling the legs with your chopsticks& testing each one for its flavour; or is the reciprocityof your tongue’s movements part of the pleasure of the dish?When the time comes, feel free to keep a limb of mine& drench it with soy if you feel lonely.