Crab

Every year for the past 10 years we go back to our honeymoon. It’s a one bedroom apartment overlooking a beach in Carolina, Emerald Isle. We sit under an umbrella, reading, Chris does needle point. We swim, we walk, we pick up shells, we relax. When we were both working it was a life saver. Now we go on vacation from retirement. It’s a retreat from normality. I was working my way through a Jim Butcher novel, playing in the sand with my toes when I picked up movement to my left. Gulls come in to investigate sometimes. We call them dump ducks. Anything on the beach is a potential source of food, including us. But this wasn’t a gull. Looking over I saw a crab sauntering toward my big toe. These crabs live down in the sand. They have holes dug and they don’t stray too far from them. Dump ducks prey on them. They’re shy for understandable reasons. Yet here came this dude with his eyes up on their stalks, moving toward me as if I was a rock or a plant. I whispered to Chris, pointing to him, or her. By the time she saw him Crabby was within a few inches of my foot, coming on strong. I wiggled my toe, he stopped. Then he took off running across the beach, in crab fashion, that is sideways. These guys are quick, like Zoom. Crabby did a jackknife into one of his holes. I wondered what brought him so close. I think we were so peaceful that we were just a part of the environment. I like that. I think we need to spend more time on the beach, more time close to the nature that sustains and supports us. I hope he didn’t have nightmares of the rock that wiggled.