I awoke this morning thinking that it was my 35th birthday. I reflected that I was now half way to being 70, and who would dispute that 70 years is a decent timespan for a life to live out its lot? I had reached a middle age - no longer a young adult and not yet an old one. I considered whether there might be a crisis looming. Am I happy living my life the way I am living it? Am I really on the right path? What's it all about? Whereto and wherefore? Then I became informed that in fact only 34 full years had passed since I was born, and was overcome by the strange delicious feeling that I had gained a year. By dint of having thought that I would turn 34, I thought that I was in fact already 34, ready to turn 35.
The first thing I saw was a crowd of crabs on the rock in the early morning sun. The bold rescue crab was clamboring up, trying to drag with him a spool of tangled fishing wire - a task which he abandoned as I approached. I, still rather bleary-eyed from the early morning, joined the rescue operation. After some careful tugging at the line, which - my care notwithstanding - made the crab with his legs caught pull and dance and finally hang listlessly, I realised that, rather than rescue that crab, I wanted to eat him.
I felt later in a way bad. I felt that the crabs would probably think that it was me who intentionally devised and set the trap, whereby I know that it was (unintentionally) Andrea - I saw him yesterday on the rocks with the reel, swigging at his beer. I had been cultivating a friendliness towards those crabs because at night they scuttle around the tideline when I am barefooted. Lately I have found some of them sitting at the bottom of the rock pool during the day when I have come to bathe the baby, have greeted them and left them alone. Initially I thought I would gain kudos from the crab community for rescuing one of their members, then I saw that it would be more difficult for me to help disentangle the crab than it would be to lower him into a pot of boiling seawater and eat him.
The water wasn't boiling when I lowered him. It was cold. I thought that he might not notice the gradual increase in temperature, but as the water got hotter his scuttling became more and more frantic until he scuttled no more. Now I wonder if it would have been more humane to have plunged him directly into boiling water, rather than teasing him slowly into his boiling suffering. I have never personally killed a pig or a cow, and it is sobering to consider that I would not want to either, despite the fact that I am generally happy to eat their flesh once slaughtered by someone else.
The crab I killed was old and venerable, evinced by a film of green algae on his incandescent orange shell. His tasty flesh would have filled a decent sized tin plucked from a supermarket shelf. The crabs are there on the rocks for the taking, but the one who buys the tin is paying not to consume their time in hunting, cooking and removing the shell. Also removed is the question of moral compunction when considering the alert eyes when they are still alive.
Later I spotted another venerable old crab squatting atop the rescue rock, surveying the scene. I wonder if these crabs consider me now to be their enemy. What do their beady eyes see, and is friendliness between species for them at all an option? What is friendliness, is it a survival technique, or does it pertain only to the domain of morality (in itself perhaps a mere means of survival)? Maybe crabs will fight like crabs for their survival, and only at the moment of surrender do they lay down their arms and say (in the manner of a chivalrous cowboy who, clutching his breast, rasps) "you got me partner", before plunging back into the soup of unformed souls. This living game is deadly serious until the moment comes to remove one's mask.
The first thing I saw was a crowd of crabs on the rock in the early morning sun. The bold rescue crab was clamboring up, trying to drag with him a spool of tangled fishing wire - a task which he abandoned as I approached. I, still rather bleary-eyed from the early morning, joined the rescue operation. After some careful tugging at the line, which - my care notwithstanding - made the crab with his legs caught pull and dance and finally hang listlessly, I realised that, rather than rescue that crab, I wanted to eat him.
I felt later in a way bad. I felt that the crabs would probably think that it was me who intentionally devised and set the trap, whereby I know that it was (unintentionally) Andrea - I saw him yesterday on the rocks with the reel, swigging at his beer. I had been cultivating a friendliness towards those crabs because at night they scuttle around the tideline when I am barefooted. Lately I have found some of them sitting at the bottom of the rock pool during the day when I have come to bathe the baby, have greeted them and left them alone. Initially I thought I would gain kudos from the crab community for rescuing one of their members, then I saw that it would be more difficult for me to help disentangle the crab than it would be to lower him into a pot of boiling seawater and eat him.
The water wasn't boiling when I lowered him. It was cold. I thought that he might not notice the gradual increase in temperature, but as the water got hotter his scuttling became more and more frantic until he scuttled no more. Now I wonder if it would have been more humane to have plunged him directly into boiling water, rather than teasing him slowly into his boiling suffering. I have never personally killed a pig or a cow, and it is sobering to consider that I would not want to either, despite the fact that I am generally happy to eat their flesh once slaughtered by someone else.
The crab I killed was old and venerable, evinced by a film of green algae on his incandescent orange shell. His tasty flesh would have filled a decent sized tin plucked from a supermarket shelf. The crabs are there on the rocks for the taking, but the one who buys the tin is paying not to consume their time in hunting, cooking and removing the shell. Also removed is the question of moral compunction when considering the alert eyes when they are still alive.
Later I spotted another venerable old crab squatting atop the rescue rock, surveying the scene. I wonder if these crabs consider me now to be their enemy. What do their beady eyes see, and is friendliness between species for them at all an option? What is friendliness, is it a survival technique, or does it pertain only to the domain of morality (in itself perhaps a mere means of survival)? Maybe crabs will fight like crabs for their survival, and only at the moment of surrender do they lay down their arms and say (in the manner of a chivalrous cowboy who, clutching his breast, rasps) "you got me partner", before plunging back into the soup of unformed souls. This living game is deadly serious until the moment comes to remove one's mask.
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