Too Bloody Bright
The Saga of a Crab
TOO
The blackness is comfort, the cold reassuring, the current indulging.
crawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawl
Minute movements in the velvet sand, a salivation at the scent from its source. I lunge, diving from a cocoon of instinct at the offender.
grabgrabgrabgrabgrabgrabgrabgrabgrabgrabgrabgrabgrabgrabgrabgrabgrab
I wrestle It from Its hiding spot beneath, and drag It upwards. I bring It towards me and savour Its final wriggle.
chewchewchewchewchewchewchewchewchewchewchewchewchewchewchewchew
crawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawl
BLOODY
Large tremors shake the ground. Clouds of sand are thrust up and hang in the gloom. More scents float over to me. It is ripe and strong and near.
crawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawl
The others race with me. I detect their scrambling, desperate movements, for they are mine, but mine are faster, more nimble, more fluid. It calls to us. It excites Us. I push forward; I do not care for those I trample, or snap pincers at to force a retreat. It screams out to Us. I bathe in Its scent and revel. I climb and climb as they all do, I crawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawl up the mountain of feverish, scaly limbs, crawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawl to It, pincers bared and sharp.
crawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawl
CRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWL
CRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWL
But It lies to Us. The mountain rolls and to more of Us It lies, and the stampede reverses and the mountain melts in the comforting cold, but we are trapped and the scent taunts Us as we find patches of fine sand to rest.
And then.
Madness abounds as we are lifted off and tugged upwards. The comforting crush dissipates, the cold is not cold, and the darkness fades into an excruciating spectrum of Light, a Light of which I have not seen and would not wish to see again.
Plunged from salty existence, onto slippery hardness. Voices, Light, another current that nips at me harsher than anything below, scrambling, crawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawl, viscous pincers-that-aren’t-pincers grabgrabgrabgrab at me, and I fly from the light and down, down, down into a new dark, and a colder, colder that I have known, to a weakness that creeps up on me and pulls me down and down into nothing.
BRIGHT
crawl
crawlcrawl
crawlcrawlcrawl
crawlcrawl
crawl
The Light is pain, the cold is not cold, no current reaches out its hand to me. Garbled sounds shake invisible walls. Streams of bubbles rise from a dead source.
All the others are gone. One by one The Great Pincer came and seized them and dragged them upwards. It will be my turn soon. I lie and I wait and I watch the odd shapes that bulge and recede outside of the invisible walls.
Suddenly, The Great Pincer plunges, catches me. I rise from the pain and into a strange world that quickly changes into a whiter one, awash with many scents.
The Great Pincer puts me down and I instantly try to crawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawlcrawl and grabgrabgrabgrabgrabgrab and chewchewchewchewchewchew, attempting to escape or catch The Great Pincer but it has me and crushes me against a silvery surface and I feel a cold that is cold, like the slippery surface below, touch me from above, and I CRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWL and
GRABGRABGRABGRABGRABGRAB and
CHEWCHEWCHEWCHEWCHEWCHEW
because this is not comforting blackness or reassuring cold or a current indulging, so I
CRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWLCRAWL and
GRABGRABGRABGRABGRABGRAB and
CHEWCHEWCHEWCHEWCHEWCHEW and
BLACKNESS.
