At the moment I was throwing
Faulker’s literary classic out the window, I noticed a spaceship
had landed in the parking lot across the street. It was a
lousy parking job considering one of the spaceship’s arms
had gone through the window of Fred’s abandoned Auto Shop.
The crabs had descended the ship and were investigating the
damage done. In the apartment buildings across the street,
I could see terrified faces in each window. Those windows
that weren’t boarded up, I mean.
The crabs were more attractive
than I had imagined; weeks before, when TV still worked and
first I heard the news of their coming, I shuddered. Giant
crabs, I thought. What a disgusting alien species
to end up losing the human race to. I pictured sloppy,
slimy enormous spider-like hard-shelled monsters, devouring
us with sasquatch-esque noises. I pictured beasts, wet and
red and trampling. But these gentle creatures inspecting
their spaceship were exact in their movements, their color
soft and pink. I studied them through my binoculars and noticed
their eyes, so sensitive and simple. Big black shining blobs
that seemed to simply say, LOVE ME. I set my binoculars
down and, as if in a dream, wandered outside across the abandoned,
garbage-scattered street, and into the parking lot.
As I neared them, the crabs
seemed to stiffen a bit. There were seven of them, each about
twice my size. They blinked their bulbous eyeballs at me.
Their hairy claws clicked on the pavement. But there was
something utterly harmless about them, something bovine and
lovely.
“Greetings,” I pronounced. “I
don’t suppose you understand English?”
They shuffled a bit. They
whistled loudly when they breathed.
“I come in peace,” I offered,
lifting my hands in the air to show I was unarmed.
“He’s going to get torn apart
by crabs!” a hysterical woman in an apartment window screamed.
“Get the hell out of there!” a
man’s voice in another apartment window suggested.
I ignored their pleas, focusing
on the crabs. They all looked exactly the same to me, but
the one I was directly facing seemed the most approachable
somehow. He blinked more than the others. I neared him with
caution, thinking, if I die this way, at least my death will
be really bizarre and fit for legend. Since the wife left
and my toe was mangled in the world’s worst stubbing, I had
nothing to live for anyway.
“I love you,” I told him simply,
hugging his front claw. “I don’t know why, but I do.”
They didn’t move. The crab
whose front claw I embraced breathed in and out, sounding
not unlike the muffled moans of a teakettle. The other crabs
scuttled closer, curiously. None touched me. I reached out
and hugged another crab’s front claw.
“You, too. I love you, too.”
And the next, and the next,
and the next. The crabs didn’t seem to know what to do. Their
eyes shone especially bright though; I noticed it when I
stepped back after all seven hugs were finished. It almost
seemed as if they were tearing up.
“We can live in peace, you
and I,” I told them. “I welcome you to earth.”
I bowed. People in the apartment
windows above me and across the street were cheering and
applauding.
“Come down!” I shouted. “Don’t
be afraid! The giant crabs are peaceful and loving creatures!”
