“Pretend With Me.”
by Alyssa Samuels
A hermit crab has no perception of an apocalypse.
On the day humans had recounted as the ‘fateful’ one or ‘the beginning of the end’ or even just ‘the one where they stopped trying,’ all the crab could see were the plumes of smoke covering the sky. It hid, shaking slightly, in its shell; to the crab it was just another storm to brave through.
It lost its colony that day. When it emerged from its shell they were all gone, but it did not have the capacity to worry. It simply foraged for food, picking at the remaining bits of sandwiches and snacks pedestrians left behind.
The tide ebbed and flowed, still mechanical even under the chaos happening above. Within a week, it had scrubbed away the ashy outlines of ‘what once was’ Within two, the hermit crab was all that remained.
A girl had appeared on the beach after some time. She had been tearing open a bag of chips when the crab met her. To its eyes, she existed in mosaic: a blurry yet consistent painting of grayish-blue eyes, a circular face, and torn clothes. It snapped at her, clutching onto her finger with its pincer. Sustenance was what it lived for; it would give up those chips only over its last breath.
She just laughed. The crab backed away, cowering at the sound, only for her to inch closer and wrap a small towel around it. Soon, she was cradling it within her palms. It was only then that the hermit crab remembered what it was like to be warm.
A hermit crab has no perception of time.
There were nights it and the girl spent laying on the sand, ones where she held it up to see unviewable stars. There were times she would shower it with gifts, humming softly as she built crab-sized houses out of rocks and sticks.
The tides turned and turned. The girl started coughing.
When she was gone, the crab did not have the capacity to remember her. It simply kept going, even when the sea had frozen and murdered the tide.
Ten years later the skies cleared and the sun dawned down on the crab for what felt like the first time.
There was no sound to be heard anymore, but, when gray turned to gold, the hermit crab remembered what it was like to be warm.