Ghost crabs live off dead flesh, but we were once hunters. She did not stay to hear its sounds, but ran away. Thin and sharp, grasping pincers, and its hard shell reeking of the sea and matted with dirt and flotsam. She did not see it until it reached for her. You watched the video, and you sympathised with her fear. A woman claimed to have been attacked by a ghost crab, while walking on the beach at night. What is unique is that in Singapore, no one knows they are there.Ī while ago, there was a news story about a crab. You forget that the only thing that doesn’t belong here is you. We make dwellings in the sand, but you complain that it makes a mess of your beach. Our shells are tinted bluish grey like polished bone in the sun. Ghost crabs are small, box-shaped, scuttling creatures, with quick, thin pincers that come to rest in a natural downward slant, because combing for weak prey, or sifting the sand for fair cast-offs is our lot. When I tire of moving, I fold myself away in my shell, and then, you don’t see me at all. I stay on the move, because moving, you see me even less. Like the sand, which welcomes the froth and crashing of the waves to drown its memories of murder, the ghost crabs have learned to shunt ourselves in the gaps in the sand, and behind rocks, where you do not care to picnic. You arrive in the late mornings, in your hatch-backs and motorcycles, with your camp chairs and your boxes of food, to occupy our beach. I am translucent, and that is one reason why you see through me. You have no shell, and you don’t belong here. I know all the ways you cope with being on our beach. ![]() But more often, the sun is set deep in the sky, and bullies the clouds away, so you roof your eyes. If the sand is damp, but the sulking clouds lean on our sagging sky and sigh a cool breeze on your cheeks, you will wrap your arms around yourself, in delight at the coming of crisp monsoon days. Night on Changi beach belongs only to the ghost crabs. That is why, although you love the beach, you know not overstay into the night. ![]() The tender white sand cannot forget the damp warmth of blood and bones, and some nights, it reminds us, in the thin howl of the wind. It was here that, 80 years ago, the invaders emptied truckloads of men, blindfolded and bound, to be shot. ![]() I watch as you pass us, the ghost crabs of Changi Beach, eyes wide but unseeing. The only thing you are certain of about me, is that I do not exist.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |