Building

Written 54-J01 [2023-03-30], Edited 54-J03 [2023-04-01]

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The hermit crab felt constrained and bloated. The crustacean could feel its muscles press against its exoskeleton.

The time had come to find a new home.

The hermit crab lived in a shell constructed by a sea snail. It was a mobile home with an occupancy of one, so perhaps a marine regulator might call it a vehicle rather than a shelter.

But the current occupant needed a lot more space. It was time to trade up into a larger dwelling. Unfortunately for the hermit crab, the housing market was getting quite difficult. The acidification of the ocean was putting snails out of the workforce and cutting the shell supply. Many of the small, flimsy shells that remained didn’t have squid insurance.

Of course, like many struggling home buyers the hermit crab didn’t have that much time to study all the market trends. Indeed, forget acidification, the crab might not have known what a snail was. But the crab knew one thing for sure. I cannot be shell-less, it thought. I cannot be homeless.

The creature crawled under the midday sun. The cold exoskeleton of its legs scraped against the burning sands. Where am I? thought the crab. Where is the water?

THUMP

The crab felt a vibration in the ground. The crab’s compound eyes could sense a large moving object.

THUMP

THUMP

THUMP

Something was moving, and it was perhaps twenty times taller than the hermit crab’s shell. Danger, the crab thought, and tried to squeeze as far into its abode as possible. This shell is too small, I can’t fit, I can’t fit! The crab’s immense backside took up almost all the shell space. As this was a house composed of a single massive closet, the interior of this shelter was much longer than it was wide.

Yet this was a matter of life and death. The crab pulled its head and body indoors, then the claws, then a few of the knees. But there wasn’t enough space for everything, and the previous occupant hadn’t supplied a lock.

Nonetheless, since the crab didn’t know any better, it enjoyed a brief moment of peace. There were some distant sounds, sounds made by the flesh of some land creature. But who cares, who knows what it even meant? It was certainly not the business of an adolescent travelling crustacean looking to buy a new home. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

Then the lifting started.

The crab looked to the left and right, but its house lacked windows to the outside. The crab never felt anything like it before. It was being lifted, vertically through the air. Why am I going up? thought the crab. Isn’t the water somewhere down?

The crab felt like its exoskeleton was bursting, because it literally was. The time had come. The time had come but this crab wasn’t ready, it hadn’t found a home, it was too busy being lifted in the air by some mysterious force.

Suddenly a fleshy appendage intruded on the crab’s home. Forget knocking, the column of meat just slid through the door like it owned the place. Big for a worm, thought the crab. But hey, an arthropod’s gotta eat.

The crab decided it was time for some self defence. It pinched the invader with its stronger claw. Suddenly something cried out, and crab felt heavier.

The entire weight of the crab was passing through its claw!

If the crab let go, it would fall along with its shell. Into the sand? Or into something else. The crab felt afraid, so it kept pinching the alien worm thing that visited the shell. The crab wouldn’t let go.

The worm appendage shook all over the place. Left, right, up, down, every angle, every direction. Every second, the crab moved distances that dwarfed its puny shell. But it was that same puny shell that saved the crab, staying snugly attached to the crab’s bloated body, refusing to fall off despite the land-tentacle creature’s best effort.

Then the land creature made its most radical move yet, it spun around once, twice, thrice. The crab had never ever in its life been spun around until now. Perhaps if the crab knew of wheels, it would call itself the outermost bit of a spoke. Perhaps if the crab knew of starts, it would call itself a planet.

The crab spun in the air, and each time got dizzier. When will this end? Why is this happening to me? thought the crab. And in a flash of confusion, the crab let go of its captor turned captive.

The crab flew.

It was the most disorienting sensation, something no hermit crab could ever truly get used to. The crab and its shell was a projectile in the air, it was a missile, it was a harpoon. The crab’s legs flailed wildly but it was futile, there was no ground to be found.

Then after a couple of seconds which felt like an eternity, the shell impacted something.

Water! thought the crab. Water! Yes!

As the crab sank to into the water, it felt increasingly relaxed. Yes, away from the sand, away from the sun, away from the land creatures, away from the sky. I am in water. I am where I’m meant to be.

The crab sank to the floor of a reef. This reef had seen better days, like so much of the ocean. Many of the local citizens had emigrated to cooler waters or died of artifical disasters. The corals were on strike, and their colourful reefs were dying. Fish zipped across the waters, looking for shelter that no longer existed.

Once the crab had the chance to calm its gills, it looked to the nearest creature for whatever reasons crabs look at things. Was it curiousity? Hunger? Did the crab just want someone to complain with it about the oceanic economy? We might never know, as the nearest creature was an anemone.

The hermit crab circled its new neighbor, as if imitating the high speed revolutions that placed it here. The crab crawled sideways, always staring at the anemone. Is somebody hiding in there, thought the crab. Somebody tasty, perhaps?

It was only after the first orbit that the crab noticed what the anemone was sitting on. Not stone, no the shape was more regular. There were spirals among spirals, there were colors among colors. It seemed familar, yet roomy. It had a retro look, from the coral’s golden age. But this was not the slapdash work of some common coral, this was the work of a patient architect.

The anemone was resting on a giant mollusc shell. Was it made by a giant snail, a nautilius perhaps? For the first time in a long time the crab felt pleased. I will not be shell-less, thought the crab. I have found my home.

Feedback from the Joy of Writing group

• fun, and listeners could imagine everything happening
• Maybe now the anemone and the crab can be friends
• Would be good for an illustrated children’s book
• commentary on (human) housing market