It was a beautiful day to go to the beach. The sun was high and the water shone a shining cerulean. You tramped across the sand, feeling underused muscles complain with each step. There’s a vague ache in your shoulders from the days spent hunched at your computer terminal. The unaccustomed brightness hurts your eyes and you stop near the tide line and sigh.
The therapist said getting outside a little each day would help. You’ve never been outdoorsy but a walk on the beach isn’t that taxing. Then again it also doesn’t feel helpful as you’re wiping tears away from the sun shining aggressively on the water. You look down at the tide pools you’ve arrived at.
You can’t deny that while it’s too bright out, and your muscles are already complaining, the smell of the salt and wind is appealing. A small corner of your heart tilts up in a way you’ve almost forgotten. You squat down to look at the pools, feeling just for a moment like a kid again.
Anemones, starfish, and barnacles abound. You watch patiently to see if anything more secretive will move. After a few minutes your patience is rewarded- what appeared to be a rock scuttles. Your heart turns over. It’s some kind of crab, you know. But you feel like you’ve never felt about a crab before. An immense tenderness and love roars through you. Without thinking you reach down into the cool water and the crab steps lightly into your palm.
You lift it up for closer inspection and the crab regards you with tiny beady crab eyes full of the same love. You sit back on the sand, full of both love and a sad kind of resignation.
You found your soulmate. But your soulmate is a crab.
You pull out your phone with a sigh and begin researching saltwater tanks.
It takes about a week to get the tank set up. It’s technically illegal to take wildlife from the beach to keep but no one could deny that the crab doesn’t with your leave your company. You visit every day, and it waits in the pool at low tides. Finally, your tank at home is ideal. The water salinity is correct with plants, rocks, and little creatures for your soulmate to eat. Your soulmate loves their new tank when you sneak them home. They scuttle around touching their new rocks possessively.
When you get home from work at night the crab is waiting, tiny claws pressed to the glass. You tell it about your day and stroke it’s shell. In the mornings it does little crab dances begging you to stay home with it. On the weekends you take it down to low tide, even at night, and it scrambles happily across the rocks and through the pools. But it always returns to your hand when you call.
You aren’t sure what name would be appropriate so you call it, “my love.” It seems able to hear you and gently grips your hand with its pincers when you whisper good night to it. You didn’t think you would be but… you’re happy. You find that the crab understands you. You feel comforted and loved in its presence. You don’t miss the company of other people, though you occasionally still go to work outings and friends birthdays. You usually spend the evening looking forward to the warm glow of your crabs tank.
You’re happy for a long time. But your crab starts to slow down. It’s claws grasp more feebly when it holds your hand. You google how long crabs live, and try not to be dismayed. It’s been something like two years already. Three to five years. Just three to five years together. How old was your love when you found them on the beach? And now it’s been two years already.
You rush home most nights now. You don’t go out with friends or coworkers. You sit by the tank and smell the delicate salt smell and hold your love gently in your hand. You caress their shell and their pincers wave feebly in enjoyment.
One morning they aren’t moving. You walk with dread to their tank but they appear still. You reach down and cradle them gently, lifting them to your face. Their pincers twitch softly, they’re still holding on. You whisper, “It’s okay, my love. You can let go. I love you. I hope I see you again. But if I don’t you will always have my heart.”
You kiss their little shell and they don’t move again.
You call out of work. You can’t stop crying, and you’re not sure what to do with their precious little body. Everything feels wrong. You can’t publicly mourn a crab. No one will come cry with you at a graveside for a crustacean.
Helpless and sad, you decide you have to go for a walk. You’ve gotten used to going out each day, especially on weekends, and your legs don’t complain. What happened next wasn’t your fault. You weren’t paying attention but you shouldn’t have had to be. Even if you had been, it would have only upset you to see the car bearing down on you as you were midway through a crosswalk. You couldn’t have gotten out of the way.
Your eyes opened, blurry and new to see the beaked faces of your parents, graceful white necks curling protectively up into the sky. You pushed yourself feebly out of your shell and lay panting in a nest made of water reeds and grasses.
That’s how you were born.
Being a swan was a nice life. Your parents were diligently protective. Some of your siblings didn’t make it to fledging but most did. Once you fledged being a swan was even nicer. Flying in formation behind your parents, feeling the simple mathematics of air currents, trajectories, and trigonometry flow over you as simply as breathing.
On your first migration you came to a place full of other swans. The feeling of safety and community cupped you and you browsed freely for food. You are one among the many.
Then in the crowd of flashing white feathers and long necks- you saw them. The most elegant and beautiful swan you’d ever seen. Your heart swelled with love both strange and familiar. You began to dance for them and they returned your calls and gestures at once, reaching out their sinuous neck to caress you.
You found your soulmate. Again.
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