Jeryon tumbles through the gray, getting nowhere. Sometimes his face is thrust into a huge bubble, and he gobbles air before he’s pulled out. He sees a flash of pale skin and kicks for it. His hands grab only sand.
Jeryon pushes off the sandy ridge, his head breaks the surface, and he sees a beach before a wave drives him under again. When his feet hit the bottom, he springs forward with what strength he has. He bobs up. He flings his arms, trying to ride a wave in, but an undertow holds him in place. He can’t stay on the surface much longer. He drops under again and lunges to his right. There’s another ridge there. Rich sand. Jagged rocks. Coral.
He grabs it and presses his knees beneath himself. That’s enough for him to poke his face above the waves before the next wave drives him again into the gray.
Desire leaves his body: for food, for water, for breath. His will uncoils. His body relaxes. All sounds fade. His shoulder scrapes against the bottom. He’s pushed along it until he can’t rise anymore. One last roll and he’s on his back, anchored by his outstretched arms and legs, sucking air, drinking the rain. Waves flood his ear. The darkness just is.
Then it’s not. The tide has receded, but not the rain. Where is the poth? A line of black rocks extends from the shore, ending at three skinny stacks, which the dinghy must have hit. Is that an arm waving? Something is floating beside them. Jeryon lifts his arm.
He floats awake, engulfed in blue; a rich, unchanging, endless blue. Somehow that’s more terrifying than black. A gull flies overhead, and his weight returns. Sand skitters across his cheeks and pushes at his back. His lips are so parched he wants to chew them off. Something is touching his foot.
A white horned crab a foot wide with legs three feet long and a split mouth as big as his face stands over his foot. It holds his big toe lightly with a broad, toothy claw. Its eyestalks sway around the toe, its split mouth ruminating, as if the crab is measuring his toe with calipers. The crab brings out its other, thinner claw, which has needlelike teeth. It taps the end of his toe here, there, then snips the pad. Jeryon jerks his foot, but his foot ignores him. The crab snips again. Blood appears.
More crabs sidle over, curious, their claws clicking. The beach is covered with them. A few dart into the waves to drag fish onto shore. A dozen are stripping the skeleton of what looks like a dolphin thrown up by the storm. One crab, not two feet from Jeryon’s face, looks out to sea, claws upraised. Splatters of meat and bloody sand stain its shell.
Snip. Jeryon stifles a cry. He tries to sit up, but he’s so stiff he has to grab his legs and fold himself into a sitting position. The crab doesn’t notice him until Jeryon grabs its claws and wrenches the large one off.
All clicking ceases. The crabs scuttle back. One clicks tentatively.
The toesnipper is appalled. It snips, its other legs flail and its eyestalks stare at him, daring him to do that again. Off comes the skinny claw. It joins the first in Jeryon’s lap. He presses the toesnipper against the sand with his foot, and makes it watch him suck the meat from its claws. Shards stick to his throat. He chokes them down.
The other crabs develop a sudden interest in the dolphin. The ocean challenger charges the waves. The toesnipper waggles its eyes at them.
Jeryon flips the toesnipper to pry up its bell-shaped apron with his fingers, but it would be easier to pry a brick from a wall. His father told him, “Never mallet a crab,” but his shaking fingers couldn’t lever the blade either. He looks for a rock. The only one he finds within crawling distance is a black boulder poking through the sand, so the crab becomes the mallet. After several blows, the apron shatters and its legs stop flailing. He peels it away, then its carapace, scrapes off the dead man’s fingers, and sucks the meat out. The butter helps him swallow.
It’s gamier than Joslin crabs, but the mustard and roe are tasty, even if his father, who always put the roe in a soup, would mock him for eating it like an owner: raw off a blade.
When the meat hits his stomach, it rebounds with a gush. His throat flames. He hopes the mustard didn’t poison him. He crawls away from the puddle in the sand, and eats the rest of the crab flake by flake.