The Chosen One

I had been chosen. Mama told me this day would come, even as it had seemed so far away and maybe even impossible all those months ago, having only just experienced my first molt. “You will continue to grow, and they will come for you,” she promised. The excitement was marred by an immediate letdown. It had looked like I’d be finding my salvation right alongside my oldest and closest friend, Nate. The net first encased me and Nate yelled out in empathetic joy, ‘au revoir, vieil ami.’ But then, suddenly, as I was just adjusting to the plastic bag that would be my deliverance, I found Nate tumbled down upon me into the very same plastic bag. My god, dear reader, the odds! The beautiful fortune of it all - to be sharing this most ultimate of endings with Nate. The same Pal I had shared my first kill with. The only living creature to have seen me at my most vulnerable - gawky and bright pink while exchanging shells. Our joy needed no expression. From our earliest memories we’d been indoctrinated with the significance of this moment. We simply locked limbs, enclosing first left and then right appendages into union, taking on the shape of a football huddle. This would be the last greatest moment of my short life as, not a moment later, our fates turned. We heard muffled cries - ‘too expensive’, ‘only for two people’, ‘how much does one weigh?’ We had no context, but our eyes leapt forward, and we stared deep into each other’s sets - we knew something was terribly wrong. I held onto Nate for as long as I could. I will never forget the awful sound of his enclosed claw being torn from mine, the jagged edges grinding away at each other as the external malignant force accelerated its efforts to disband us. This five-pronged claw held onto Nate from behind, and lifted both him and myself skyward as I clasped to him with all I had. Nate’s eyes began to recede into his body - a sign of resignation I could not bear. A similarly accepting small smile slowly formed on his tiny mouth. I dashed my eyes forward to meet his own receded set, literally pressing my eyes into his. ‘Please, don’t do this’, I tried to convey. But he’d made up his mind, and his claws slowly released their grip on my own. I fell downwards as Nate continued to rise from the bag, my eyes further distending as the distance between us grew from both ends. I wanted to see him (and have him felt seen) until the final possible moment. With all apologies for the abridged narrative, my dear reader, you must understand that I remember very little of the 30 minutes that proceeded. My eyes had closed just as Nate was leaving my view and had remained closed throughout this forgotten interval. The thought of opening them and having the visual evidence that Nate was never again to fall upon them. This thought paralyzed me. But then I found a new purpose: to honor Nate’s sacrifice. Nate had wanted this for me, and what kind of specially ungrateful friend was I to spend my reckoning in selfish mourning? I forced my eyes open, and found myself being observed. Two sets of large socketed eyes peering upon my own. (My) life-altering questions pondered by these gargantuan gods: ‘Is it...alive?’ ‘Is it still safe to eat?’ I realized then that my grief-fueled paralysis could easily have portrayed catatonia, if not death. But now, with a reignited desire to justify Nate, I frantically tried to display signs of life! This turned out to be horrifically difficult - it seemed that my disability was not completely mental. I quickly became aware of an utter deprivation of oxygen, and my muscles felt as if they had solidified - I could muster not the slightest contraction. The gods continued to understandably doubt me: ‘Maybe we should toss it? Order take-out?’ Dear reader, would I fall this fucking close to greatness? I again closed my eyes. I thought of my mother: her bedtime stories, cradling me between outstretched claws as she assuaged my nightly pleas to again hear the story of ‘Carlito - The Black Pepper Crab’, or ‘Samson and the first Rangoon’ (my personal favorite). And of course I thought of Nate: our more recent nightly ritual - waxing romantic about our ideal preparation (he, a Francophile, had always been partial to bisque. Myself, as a Sinatra fanatic, prayed for a marinara). I would not fail them! I gathered myself, and accepted I had one chance at this. There was only possibly enough energy for one small movement, my breath now teetering just above suffocation and my muscles feeling like chained boulders. I focused my energies towards my larger (and lucky) right claw, which the gods were now poking unhopeful of a response. I tried with all my might to imagine the claw opening - to will it. But an eternal twenty seconds passed in utter futility. And then there was no breath left. Things dizzied and dimmed within my mind. I was leaving myself. Just as I felt everything within me relax in acceptance there appeared an (again reader, my apologies) indescribable feeling surrounding the right claw. I know this will sound crazy to you, but I cannot classify this feeling as internal. It was from outside of myself, as if in the air. It was as if the oxygen, nitrogen and argon had become angelically condensed, with the sole purpose of moving my humble claw. It slowly, geologically slowly, began to open. Unable to even open my eyes now to see, I prayed this divine intervention was not just in my head. My next memory, like this claw opening, was also from outside of myself - without body or form. There was some ‘me’ here, but my body was very obviously no longer enclosing me. In fact, I was peering down at that which had been my corporeal form, and would you believe me reader if I told you it was by far the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen and smelled and heard? I had been torn, gutted, and arranged in uncountable pieces, split more or less evenly before the two gods. I would have been altogether unidentifiable if not for the presence of that signature bite mark on my disembodied right claw (a relic of a chance encounter with a tiger shark in my now former life). But there I was, undeniably me, and, even more unbelievably, I sat upon my childhood fantasy’s bed of al dente linguine. Blended tomato of a bright orange-red blanketed and reinforced the pasta and I in our union. The scent of fresh basil and fried garlic perfumed the air. Dear reader, was it you who dined upon me? Was it you who chose me? You who I had been fortunate enough to be consumed by? Please, tell me: Did I taste as I looked and smelled? Was I worthy to grace your tongues? Sinatra’s “That’s Life” filled the room.