"The chlorine got him," Raquel spoke in somber tones like she had a personal connection with him. Of course she didn't know-none of us knew-if "he" was even a him. She bowed her head and I tried to feel what my sister was feeling. It was only a crab after all; a little off-white crab with a pinkish hue spread lightly over its carapace. Limp claws and splayed legs lay still in the palm of James' hand. My husband is not often sentimental, but even he stood silent, reverently staring at the wayward crab he held.
Crabs are simple, elegantly clumsy looking creatures. They don't drive cars or build skyscrapers. You don't often think of them unless you are sitting down to pull their meat from a dismembered claw. One finds though, that a sturdy little crab that makes its way dramatically into your life on a sunny day in Puerto Vallarta, can be a well-placed harbinger of things to come. If he happens to be dead when he arrives, well, ye be warned.
Our tiny crustacean friend must have wandered off course after leaving the shelter of the tide pools. In his search for home, or for something new and exciting, he was deceived by the sparkle of the cool blue waters in our resort hotel's outdoor pool. He must not have noticed the lack of rocks, anemone, and sea cabbage native to his safe zone. These are all assumptions of course. He could very well have been a suicidal side-walker. Perhaps he had become dissatisfied or disenchanted with the life of crabs. The monotony of the ebb and flow in his tide pool home may have finally driven him over the literal edge of Las Palma's gray-tiled pool. We would never know.
"Well," I started. What else could I say? Nothing to be done now but drop the little ivory arthropod into the nearest garbage can and get back into the pool. The sun was high and bright; an earlier breeze had long since given up and I was starting to sweat.
Somehow though, none of us could move, though we all sported beads of perspiration and reddening skin. I looked around half-heartedly for something to break this spell but found nothing. So instead I shifted my feet, feeling the burning concrete and wishing for the pool.
The mid-day horizon behind me bore the unease of Byzantium storm clouds, building slowly but steadily. They cast no shadow.
