“Something coming back from the dead was almost always bad news. Movies taught me that. For every one Jesus you get a million zombies.”
― David Wong, John Dies at the End
From my blog (I called it an “Online Journal” then), The Daily Epiphany, Thursday, February 3, 2003.
Disappointment
We never did bring those crabs back from Galveston – I was worried that they needed deeper water so we put them back in the surf. Nick really wanted some though, so Candy bought him a couple at a kiosk in the mall. The things had gaudily painted shells – one looked like a soccer ball and the other was bright red with yellow stars.
Nick really liked his hermit crabs, though they seemed awfully shy. I remember the shoreline in Panama along the Atlantic reef. I wasn’t much older than Nick then, really. We would walk along, looking for shells (I had a thing for cowries). There would be a little inlet full of shells and when I’d walk up they would all pick up and scatter – they were all hermit crabs. Those weren’t really too scared of people – if you picked one up and held it still on your palm it would come out and start to walk around pretty quickly. Maybe it was the heat.
At any rate, Nick liked his two crabs even though they would rarely come out where you could see them. He’d give them baths – little spritzes of distilled water. He said they liked that.
Today he picked one up to spray him and he fell out of his shell, dead. Nick said he thought he’d been dead for a while – he didn’t smell too good. On the phone, I asked Nick if he wanted to bury the crab in the back yard. “I’ve already flushed him,” Nick said. I told Nick I was on the way and would be there soon.
When I drove up, Nick had obviously been crying. I didn’t really talk to him much, mostly let him tell me about it and said I knew how bad he felt. We offered to get him another, but Nick hasn’t decided. He’s scared that one will die too.
I didn’t tell Nick what I thought to myself. I don’t think it’s a very good idea to get too emotionally attached to something you bought at a mall kiosk.
And a piece of flash fiction for today:
AITA for Using My Side Hustle to Help My Boyfriend Escape the Clutches of Death?
by Aimee Picchi
from Flash Fiction Online
Bill Chance 